The University of the South Pacific (USP) participated in the Family Farming, Lifestyle and Health (FALAH) workshop hosted at the Solomon Islands National University (SINU) in Honiara, from the 14th – 16th May 2024.
The Vice Chancellor of SINU, Professor Transform Aqorau, delivered the opening remarks and described this project as highly relevant to Pacific communities.
The FALAH Project falls under the European Commission Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions and Research and Innovation Staff Exchange and 1.3 million euros was awarded to the consortium members of the project.
The University of New Caledonia (UNC) leads the FALAH project, which brings together 14 institutions from the Pacific region and Europe including The University of the South Pacific.
The USP team was composed of Prof Sushil Kumar, Director Research, and Mr Jioje Fesaitu, who participated in the 7th FALAH Workshop with the theme “FORESTRY, AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES & HEALTH – OUR LIVELIHOODS.”
Mr Fesaitu presented lessons learned from other Food Security projects carried out at USP, such as The Global Community Food for Planetary Health (GCFAH), focusing on some of the diet-recall tools that could be adapted for the development of the iRecall24-Pacific application.
During the second day of the workshop, USP’s Professor Sushil Kumar presented on the Climate Change and the Futures of Coastal Communities (CHANCES-PACIFIC) living labs on behalf of the team, led by USP and University of New Caledonia and also composed of SINU and the National University of Vanuatu.
Prof Kumar presented the administrative and financial updates of the project and the future implementation of the strategies to carry out the activities consistent with the project’s objectives. CHANCES PACIFIC (Climate cHANge and the Futures of Coastal communitiES) is part of the RERIPA Call 3 – Living Labs project and funded by the European Union and research field trips will be undertaken in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to study how sea-level rise and coastal erosion due to Climate Change affect communities’ livelihood and lifestyle.
The final day of the event comprised of a field trip was organised by SINU, taking the participants first to Chinatown in central Honiara before traveling east to Corona market, back to Edsons Ridge hill, before returning for lunch at SINU, Marine campus compound.
The participation of USP team in the workshop was funded by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) through their call for project NERE NAHAL and the successful USP-led project “Developing Resilience through Capacity Development on FALAH in PICs: Solomon Islands & Vanuatu.
