Welcome to the June 2005 FijiBure.Com newsletter

Visit to Fiji, May 2005

My extended trip to Fiji from 20th to 30th May resulted in some great new developments.

While in Fiji I met with some of our village hosts at Namatakula.

We now have three new villages that will shortly be added to the web site (I ran out of time to visit the other two).

These villages include

• Rookwa on Bega Island (the village in which fire walking originated)
• Galoa on the tiny Galoa Island north of Vanua Levu - one f the activities is "Feeding the sharks".
• Matacawalevu in the Yasawa Islands - situated just a few hundred metres from the location of the film Blue Lagoon where Brook Shield created a stir. 

Watch our pages as we add and adapt our web site to reflect these new additions - which will take place during June.

The Village Fund

As a result of growing feedback and requests to support villages financially we have now established two village funds in every participating village.

A guest to a village may, only if he or she wishes, contribute an additional cash payment to the village matagali (elders) during their stay. There is a poster in all guest rooms which tells you how you can contribute and how the village funds work. In summary, the money is paid directly to the village mataqali. There are two funds.

• The first  fund is a building project identified by the mataqali which will benefit the entire community. Your money will go towards funding that project.
• The second fund is the micro-financing of cottage industries created by villagers at that village. A villager who could not afford to buy the tools to set up his or her business can now approach the mataqali to have his setting up costs (to a maximum of F$500) financed by this second fund. It is up to the mataqali to identify villagers the will support and the recipient is morally obliged to repay the money once he is earning an income from his new trade. There is no interest payable.

It is up to the contributing guest to decide which fund his or her money goes towards.

Please note this is a totally voluntary exercise so please do not feel obligated to make any payment to the village fund. If you would like to contribute when you visit villages please take extra cash with you - any paper amount from F$2 up will be gladly accepted.

Namatakula booked out again

Our most popular destination, Namatakula, despite having a large guest house is now fully booked during much of June and bookings up to August are quickly putting pressure on our calendar. This month we will, for the first time, hit F$10,000 in direct income to the participating villages - a very exciting milestone.  

Other villages like Namuamua, Malevu and Korovisilou are also doing very well with the positive impact of cash coming into the village having visible impacts.

The interest and participation of a major tour operator in village homestays has put further pressure on the bookings - but the villages are not complaining! (More details follow shortly).

Meeting with Ministry of Tourism in Suva

On the 27th May I had an excellent meeting with senior staff at the Ministry of Tourism, the Fiji Visitors Bureau, Provincial Chiefs, Sam Speight of Island Travel tours and a few of our village hosts who spoke first hand on how this project had turned their villages around.

The three hour meeting gave FijiBure.com the opportunity to present a long term forecast on where this project is going and, to say the least, we are all excited by its potential in the future.

The project is going to be used by the Fijian Government as  model for devising policy on village homestays.

Moce

Scott Balson

FijiBure.Com

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