The Organisation for Industrial, Spiritual, Cultural, and Advancement (OISCA) - Fiji today celebrated its 25th Jubilee Celebration at the Youth Training Centre in Nasau, Sigatoka.
The OISCA programme is a joint partnership between Government and the Japanese non-government organisation, OISCA, which was formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed in April, 1995 for five years and renewed in 1996 for another five years, while the last review was conducted in 2012.
The Minister for Youth and Sports Hon. Laisenia Tuitubou was chief guest at the celebrations and said; “The partnership over the years saw the training of approximately 1000 youths from around Fiji since 1990.”
“Many have established themselves as prominent members of the community,” said Minister Tuitubou. “In our numerous monitoring programmes, we gathered that OISCA trainees have developed themselves as active members of society.”
Hon. Tuitubou added that some have become commercial farmers and have been recognised and they are have been recipients of various national awards.
“We have seen youths taking the lead role in the development of villages and taking the steps to reaching out to other youths who needed assistance,” Hon. Tuitubou said.
Meanwhile, Representative of the OISCAR Fiji Ex- Trainees Association (OFETA and Managing Director of Tours Mangers Fiji Limited, Damend Goundar said the focus of the training remains, the teaching of organic farming techniques to young aspiring farmers although there are other components that they’ve ventured into.
He said apart from its training programmes, OISCA has expanded to having an environment component which covers mangrove planting and Coral Restoration Project.
“These two programmes have been a huge success. The Coral Restoration Programme started in 1997 and now OISCA has 13 project sites in the Nadroga/Navosa province and seven in Serua, nine in Ra and one in Tailevu,” Mr Goundar said.
He said there was also the Mangrove Planting Programme which was introduced in 1995 to the villagers, communities and school to rehabilitate coastal shorelines that were exposed to storm and erosion.
“To date a total of 121, 056 mangrove trees have been planted on an area of 100 acres. OISCA has nine project sites in the Nadroga/ Navosa province, six in Serua. Two in Tailevu, 13 in Ra, three in Ba and one in Lau which is funded by the TOKIO MARINE Insurance Company in Japan,” Mr Goundar said.
He said there was also the Children Forest Programme, an activity that promotes awareness in environmental issues through tree planting in school which started in 1992.
“An estimated number of trees planted so far are 800,000 trees and 57 schools are currently participating in the programme,” Mr Goundar said.
He said since 1990 the centre has seen over 20 resident representative of OISCA who were all expatriates.
Secretary General of OISCA-International, Yasuaki Nagaishi said she looks forward to the continuous support and collaboration from the Ministry of Youth & Sports and also other stakeholders.