SINCE the donation of solar freezers last year to West Are’Are women in Malaita province, they have benefited a lot from the equipment.
A visit to West Are’Are has revealed the freezers are making a difference to the lives of the women especially in storing their produce for marketing.
WorldFish and Malaita Provincial Fisheries officer visited West Are’Are Rokotanikeni Association (WARA) to check on three solar freezers distributed to WARA last year and they found out that the solar freezers are of great importance to the women.
The three solar freezers were funded by SWEDBIO project sponsored by the Swedish Government through WorldFish office in Auki Malaita province was distributed to three zones under WARA in 2017.
Three of the WARA zones that benefited from the freezers are Zone 3 in Waisisi, Zone 6 at Pipisu and Zone 7 at Cuthill.
According to the Malaita Provincial Fisheries officer Mathew Isihanua, the visit was purposely to check on the operation of the solar freezers, how the freezers have been used and whether the freezers is beneficial to the communities or not.
Mr. Isihanua said, the feedback received from the women from the three zones was overwhelming because the women have expressed how the freezers have helped them over the past four months in storing their produces fresh and ready for marketing.
During the visit, six 85 liters eskies were also donated to the three zones. Each zone received two eskies each.
He said eskies were given as part of the constituency assistance towards the project.
During the visit, WorldFish team also conducted interviews with the communities visited to know about the status of other livelihood projects like; copra, coconut-crushing mill, honey bee projects and soup soup garden projects that is up and running in the zones.
Mr. Isihanua said, the objective of the project is to help rural women of West Are’Are to use the freezers to help improve their livelihood especially to store their harvests ready for marketing.
By BIRA’AU WILSON SAENI
In Auki
