News & Media

Shanine’s Poultry Farm

May 3, 2017

It’s not uncommon for children in Vanuatu to stop attending school at 10 years old – there are not enough secondary school places due to government budget constraints, and many families can’t afford the school fees. At whatever age these young people leave school, their job prospects are often very limited.

Oxfam has been partnering with Rural Training Centres (RTCs) and the Farm Support Association (FSA) in Vanuatu to give young people a chance at learning a variety of skills to make them employable, equip them to start their own businesses, and give them a good shot at earning an income.

Meet Shanine Natiang. She’s from Tanna, an island in southern Vanuatu. Her life was turned around in 2013 when she applied for the Vanuatu Young Farmers Development Course in the Napil Rural Training Centre.

Shanine’s primary level education was cut short when she fell extremely ill for several weeks. She eventually recovered enough to return to school, but decided against going back and to help her parents at home instead.

“I fell ill for some weeks so I did not want to go back to school after the illness had left me, I felt that I wasn’t learning much at school and it was a waste of time, so I chose to stay at home and help look after my younger siblings”.

In 2013, after some encouragement from her father, she applied for the Vanuatu Young Farmers Development Course and was accepted. She received training in horticulture and livestock management and learned the most effective way to produce sustainable and fruitful crops in her local environment. During the course she also gained valuable gardening skills in crop conservation, garden restoration and maintenance, and landscape garden design.

Poultry farming on Tanna is an increasingly popular small-scale business, and a lot of Shanine’s training involved learning how to farm poultry effectively to get the best results. She put her skills to use and started her own poultry farming business to earn an income to support herself and her family. After her first year of training she received 40 chicks, chicken feed, wire mesh and two tarpaulins from the Farm Support Association (FSA). She maintained her poultry farm and made VT60,000 by selling each rooster for VT1,500.

Shanine’s story is a success. She learned how to effectively maintain a sustainable business, and the training programme utilised the resources available in Shanine’s environment, creating a business that works in her local context.

Shanine is now able to support herself and her family, whilst still saving some money.

“Not all of us can be smart in primary and secondary schools. I may not be good at formal school but I am good in farming and gardening. I can now combine what I learned as I grew up with what I’m learning in the trainings. I feel like I now have a positive future.”

“I am young but I am thinking more maturely than my friends. While some kids my age are just hanging in the gardens, I’m learning how to make money from it.”

Shanine has set her goal to become one of the successful female poultry farmers in her village. Now in her last year of training, other young people in Shanine’s village are seeing her tremendous progress and they are eager to join the program. 32 other young women and men are enrolled alongside Shanine at the Napil RTC, and from 2017, Vaiduhu RTC on Malo Island will also begin offering the Young Farmers Development Course.

“I can’t wait to graduate. FSA and the Napil RTC has supported me a lot, I will use the resources and skills I’ve gained to build a good future for myself and my family. I am on my way to being a successful farmer and have no doubts that I will be one of the best on Tanna”.

Since Cyclone Pam in 2015, Oxfam has been helping to rebuild classrooms and dormitories in RTCs on Tanna, Epi and Malekula Islands. Many families in Vanuatu struggle to keep their children in school as it’s too expensive, but many RTCs in Vanuatu accept in kind payment with kava, pigs or cows rather than regular fees so more families can afford it. Through the courses at the RTCs in Vanuatu, students can learn practical skills such as health and sanitation, home economics, small business management, legal rights, agriculture, mechanics and carpentry – all skills that can ensure a better, bright future for these young people.

How you and Oxfam helped Fiji

May 3, 2017

Just over a year ago, on February 20th 2016, one of the most severe cyclones the Pacific has ever seen hit Fiji. Cyclone Winston had an average wind speed of around 230kph and affected 62% of Fiji’s population.

30,369 houses, 495 schools and 88 health clinics were destroyed, and 44 lives were lost.

But – thanks to you, Oxfam was able to respond immediately. And just over a year on, this is what we have achieved:

Photo: Alicja Grocz/Oxfam

Photo: (left) Alfredo Prado/OxfamAUS; (right) Alicja Grocz/Oxfam

In addition…

We constructed 234 single toilets and 24 other toilets attached to communal structures, as well as repairing 601 damaged ones. Drainage improvements were made, including the unblocking of drains and the removal of stagnant water.

Ilisoni (below), 28, suffered a stroke that left him confined to a wheelchair. His home was flattened by Cyclone Winston, forcing him to spend months living in the community hall before the people in his village could build a new house for him. Before the cyclone there was no bathroom near his house, so a family member would have to carry him to the nearest toilet.

Photo: Alicja Grocz/Oxfam

We conducted a series of community health worker training sessions which 240 individuals completed.

We restored water supplies:

127 damaged water supplies were repaired
75 tap stands were built
53 showers were constructed
38 new water tanks were built
12 spring water sources were cleaned and are being protected
25 rain harvesting systems and water mains were repaired in 24 communities
76 affected communities and 4 schools received sanitation improvement works

“The tanks were constructed back in the days when I was still a student it worked only for one year and something broke down that remained unrepaired for the past 8 years, it took Oxfam a few hours to repair.” – Simione Koroicakou, Verevere community, Ra Province, Fiji.

“The community is now aware of the importance of Healthy Living in our community, the importance of wash, the caring of young children in the village, the cleaning of the village drain and the cleaning of our village at least every two weeks. The people have come to realise the importance of health and hygiene and of water treatment. The community has made good use of the water tank”. – Anasa Sevukiwai, 52 year old male, Raviravi Village.

Photo: Alicja Grocz/Oxfam

Oxfam’s Cyclone Winston response is earmarked to finish in June. Our main focus for these last few months are on enabling those affected by the cyclone to rebuild their livelihoods, access basic necessities and improve their access to services to ensure their long-term recovery.

This is your response as much as it is ours. You have reconstructed villages and provided people with life-saving aid. You have rebuilt lives and given people hope. You have set people up for a stronger future.

From the bottom of our heart – thank you.

10 tonnes of bananas an hour – but is it fair?

May 1, 2017

Kiwis are the biggest banana consumers per capita in the world. We eat 90,000 tonnes per year. That’s over 10 tonnes an hour! However – only 7% of bananas consumed in the country are Fairtrade.

Irene, from Zambia, South Africa, is a co-producer on a banana farm. The income she earns means she can have clean water and ample food, send her children to school and save to build a house. Photo: Abbie Trayler-Smith.

Bananas are our favourite fruit, but new research brings forward the unsustainability of our banana supply. Major supermarkets and banana retailers must do more to support banana farmers.

‘The Big Squeeze’ report was released yesterday by the Bureau for the Appraisal of Societal Impacts and Costs (Basic) and commissioned by Fairtrade New Zealand.

According to the Fairtrade New Zealand website, the report says that “New Zealand’s banana market is placing a significant amount of pressure on banana producing countries, with small farmers and workers suffering the most from ever-increasing costs of production over the past decade”.

Alarmingly, only 18% of the retail price of bananas is paid to farmers, whereas major supermarkets receive 40%.

The Fairtrade New Zealand website also says that the new report describes how buying Fairtrade can offset the negative impacts being felt by banana farmers:

“Fairtrade provides major economic benefits for producers with a guaranteed floor price (the Fairtrade Minimum Price) for bananas, as well as a Fairtrade Premium (an additional sum that is received by farmer cooperatives/associations, which currently sits at $1 USD per box of bananas), which is used to invest in housing, health, better environmental protection strategies and education.”

“Fairtrade is key for banana producers because it offers not only a secure and stable price for produce and for plantation workers but it also means plantations are able to improve productivity and quality through the support networks and training provided through Fairtrade,” says Molly Harriss Olson, Fairtrade CEO Australia and New Zealand.

Read the full report here, or read Fairtrade New Zealand’s news release here.

Oxfam helps Syrians to find safety without risking their lives at sea

April 27, 2017

Oxfam has joined a program to help Syrians find refuge in Europe. 60 people, including many families, will arrive in Italy today to seek asylum as part of a humanitarian visa programme approved by the Italian government. The people will be hosted by Oxfam in the Italian region of Tuscany for the duration of their asylum process.

Our local heroes

April 27, 2017

Just when we thought our Oxfam Trailwalker volunteers couldn’t get any more incredible…

Terri Wilkins and her team from First Credit Union in Whakatāne ran Checkpoint Two at the Oxfam Trailwalker this year, and have decided to donate the koha they received from doing so back to their community to help flood victims.

Here’s what Terri had to say:

How have you and your staff been affected by the recent weather?

“Edgecumbe is only about 10 minutes away from us and I’ve got a staff member that lives out there – she lost everything. I’ve got another staff member whose mother lives out there and she was a little bit luckier, but she still had to be evacuated. I’ve also have a lot of members who have been majorly affected by the rain and the floods.”

What did you decide to do with the koha you were to receive from Oxfam?

“We didn’t realise that we would receive some money for running a checkpoint, and that was not our objective anyway because of the cause that it supports. When I was asked to send through an invoice I said that’s not why we do it, and instead to make a donation to the 1XX charitable trust on our behalf, which is for the flood victims.”

She wanted to give her support to an issue that’s so close to home for her and her staff.

“When you’ve got friends and staff members that are affected by it, you want to help as much as you can. We still have to work, so unfortunately we couldn’t get out there to help do the clean-up so the next best thing that we could do was to financially assist the people that have been affected.”

And it wasn’t just the koha they donated…

“I organised for staff across all our branches to have a mufti day, so the funds from this were also donated. At Easter time staff would normally receive an Easter treat, so I asked the staff if, instead of receiving this, would they be happy to contribute those funds to the relief fund – and they all said yes of course.”

How important do you think it is for everyone to be supporting each other in a time like this?

“It’s incredibly important, just to be able to support people when they might need a shoulder to cry on or just somebody to talk to about it all. You can offer as much help as you like but in reality sometimes you can’t physically help but there are lots of other ways that you can.”

International community yet again falls short of meeting Yemen’s dire need

April 26, 2017

In response to the US$1.12 billion pledged to Yemen during the high-level event today in Geneva, Oxfam says the international community has fallen short in its support for the Yemeni people. Despite wide recognition of the dire level of need in the discussions, only about half of the US$2.1 billion UN appeal for Yemen was raised – which even if fully funded would only have met the basics needs of 12 million of the 18.6 million Yemenis in need of humanitarian aid.

Isabelle Moussard Carlsen, Action contre la Faim’s Operations Director, said: “Governments need to stop undermining the humanitarian response by fuelling the conflict with arms and violence. Starvation is not an acceptable strategy or consequence of the conflict. Donors must step up immediately and fully fund the Humanitarian Response Plan and actively engage with every stakeholder to facilitate the delivery of aid before Yemen reaches tipping point and we witness large scale starvation. ”

“The pledges made today mean the difference between life and death for millions of people. But donors are leaving Geneva without having committed enough funding to meet the needs of just the 12 million most vulnerable out of 19 million in need. I fail to grasp how the international community can see this crisis unfold without doing its outmost to limit the suffering that Yemenis are facing,” said Mutasim Hamdan, Yemen Country Director of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Shane Stevenson, Oxfam’s Senior Programme Manager for Yemen, said: “However much money has been pledged today, the best way to prevent famine in Yemen is for weapons to fall silent and for the parties to the conflict to return to the negotiating table. Preventing famine must be the priority – not military gains. Diplomatic engagement is needed with all sides of the conflict and pressure must be applied immediately to suspend all military operations that block access or safe movement of food supplies.”

Yemeni civil society activist, Nabil Al-Kumaim, said: “Ultimately, Yemen needs peace. The international community must engage with all parties to the conflict to address the root causes. There must be a political, not military, solution to this crisis. We need a comprehensive and nationwide cease-fire and an inclusive political process with meaningful participation of women, youth and other marginalized groups. The international community has a responsibility in seeing that this achieved.”

Furthermore, Yemeni humanitarian Non Governmental Organisations who are delivering much-needed aid to those in need and who came to Geneva specially for the conference were not allowed a meaningful role in the high-level discussions.

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