THE MINISTER FOR YOUTH AND SPORTS
HONOURABLE PARVEEN KUMAR BALA
Tuesday 10th November, 2020 at 11:00AM
• Masters of Ceremony
• Turaga Na Tui Nawaka
• Respected Talatala
• Village Elders
• District Officer for Nadi
• Senior Government Officials
• My Ministry staff
• Members of the media
• Ladies and Gentlemen
Bula Vinaka and a very good-day to you all,
It gives me pleasure to join you today to handover the assistance under the Youth Farm Initiative Program to the six well-deserved youth clubs.
The Ministry of Youth and Sports provides grants to youth clubs to help cultivate land and grow crops. It is a great co-operative venture, because the Mataqali set aside land for the young people and the Government provides grants for equipment, tools, vegetable seedlings, water tanks, fencing materials and other necessities.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the purpose of this initiative, since its inception about four months ago, is to help the youths of Fiji whose jobs were badly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
These young people will put land to use and be able to earn income through the sale of the crops they grow. They will learn how to run a business and provide for their families as many young people in the West, especially in Nadi, made their living in tourism – – the Industry hit hardest by COVID-19. We are providing for those who are out-of-work or on reduced hours with a steady flow of assistance.
In recent weeks, I have been to Levuka, Taveuni and the island of Rotuma.I would like to share with you all, the interest we’ve seen from all those youths in terms of engaging themselves with farming. I do hope that this is not only due to the COVID-19 but will be a continuous process as it will not only benefit you, but it will benefit your families and your communities.
For the Ministry of Youth and Sports, our work does not stop here.We will ensure that regular visits are being made to all our youths to oversee all the work that you are doing with the farms. And in between, if there is a need for more assistance –then definitely the Ministry will assist you.
We should all be proud that these young people have not chosen to remain seated in victim-mode mentality but instead have found a new and time-honoured way to earn an income in farming, and I wish them well for their future endeavours.
Today, I am very happy to congratulate the six youth clubs. I am also told that a total of 176 youths will benefit from this assistance we will handover today.
Ladies and Gentlemen, today I’d like to announce that the Ministry has assisted a total number of 1,273 youths from around the country. Just within a short span of four months, we have gone across the country and reached the unreached. I can assure you, there are so many success stories and I look forward to hearing success stories from Nadi very soon.
As the Honourable Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama had said, Fiji’s local communities are a source of great national strength. We have built a great country, community by community. Sometimes, certain issues are too complex to solve on our own, that’s when we need Government to step in and help solve them. Other times, communities are best suited to tap in to their creative problem-solving thinking and innovate solutions.
I’d like to remind all Fijians that, ‘United We Stand and Divided We Fall’. Together, I believe we do our best work when we join forces.
At this juncture, I’d like to thank the Tui Nawaka for allowing the other youth clubs to join hands with this village for this program.
We have two Youth Officers, who are stationed at our office in Namaka, Nadi .Initially , our office in Lautoka was responsible for the youths here however we identified a gap because majority of the time we were unable to reach out to our youths. Therefore, we decided to open our office in Nadi where two officers are available to help identify and support youth needs.
So please, do visit them.
Vinaka, Congratulations and Best Wishes to you all. Thank you.