Empowering Communities for Wellness in Viseisei Health Zone

This project, which started in February 2016, was results oriented and informed through previous projects carried out by VSHC. While working on the previous projects, the concluding results showed that many communities in the Tikina of Vuda were largely disempowered and unable to deal with their own development challenges.

The objective of this project was to use health promotion and community development strategies to empower the communities to become more resilient and self sustaining in managing their health and social challenges.

The specific objectives were to:

1. Develop VSHCs capacity to facilitate community development projects by upskilling key personnel.
2. Strengthen links with Ba Provincial Council and District Office to work closely with communities in the Tikina of Vuda to rejuvenate Village and Settlement Health Committees and structures with the aim of building a more resilient community.
3. Empower the community through advocacy, education and health promotion activities to promote wellness, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and good waste management.
4. Reduce risks of NCDs by changing individual's attitudes to enable them to adopt healthy lifestyles.
5. Encourage individuals diagnosed with diabetes, hypertension, obesity, hypercholesterolemia and cardiovascular disease to appropriately manage their conditions and to be compliant with strategies to reduce complications and early death.
6. Strengthen the CHWs capacity to work and advocate for community development in NCD prevention, and for empowerment in the areas of SRH, gender violence and waste management.

This was an Australian Aid funded project and was supported by Fiji Community Development Program (FCDP). The project focused on 3 main areas, which were NCD, SRH and Waste Management. The close link between these 3 areas encouraged a holistic approach that  enhances the services and information provided to the communities encompassing the wellness concept in totality.
We worked closely with the Community Health Workers, who added value to this project having been part of other projects in previous years.
Through this project, we aimed to achieve a community which understands wellness and is receptive to introducing behaviour changes in their individual lives to improve the health and wellbeing of themselves and their community.