FRIEND features in Dish Magazine

 Mohinesh, Sandhya, Mala and Doris going through the article

What do you do with an abundance of tropical fruit and people in poverty after a military coup?

If you are Sashi Kiran, you seek out local women with serious cooking skills  and get them making condiments. Then you get the products to commercial food safety standards and market them so those women can make  a living from it.”

Thus begins the write up on FRIEND in an award winning, bi-monthly ‘dish’ magazine, for people who enjoy good food.

The article follows FRIEND’s successful trip to the True Pacific Tradeshow  in Auckland in September 2011.

WHO Recognition for FRIEND

 Dr Temo of WHO, Sashi & Dr Animesh in the field

It was a momentous day for FRIEND when PRISM received official recognition from the  World Health Organisation for leading the fight against Non Communicable diseases in Fiji.

WHO Nutrition and Physical Activity Officer Dr Temo Waqanivalu accompanied senior officials from Ministry of Health for a field visit into communities being served by PRISM in the Western Division.

FRIEND Director Sashi Kiran says, “This is an exciting  development as it has been indicated that the PRISM model of taking the NCD management into communities can be adopted and replicated to benefit rural and underserved communities nationwide.”

Workshop Dream

The card and craft workshop building is under construction work and is expected to be completed by the end of January.

The Card/Craft Workshop building is the first of the building projects to kick start the rest of the long term FRIEND Village  dream project intended for the five acres site in Tuvu.

The workshop building is partly funded by the Canada Fund, which  has been supporting FRIEND’s income generation initiatives by providing grants and equipments over the recent years.

The workshop space will be used by around 20 card and craft makers who are operating out of the  open back porch area at FRIEND.

IGP Coordinator Nileshni Sekar says, “The past  year has been really challenging, especially since we have had a lot of wet weather days. Whenever it rains the cardmakers have to gather their material and squeeze into the main FRIEND building  which can get really overcrowded when the whole team is in the office.”

Sekar says the workshop space is will provide for a better space for the card makers to get the creative juices flowing.

 “We have also been struggling with storage space issues. The new workshop will take care of that too.”