EU PACRES Supported Scholarship Recipients share personal experiences undertaking USP’s Certificate IV in Resilience Program.
15 August 2022
The USP PACRES component supported a cohort of 19 students, nine from the Solomon Islands and 10 from Vanuatu, to undertake the Certificate IV in Resilience Qualification training in 2022. This program is an accredited program offered through USP’s Pacific Technical and Further Education (Pacific TAFE).
During a joint mission with PACRES SPREP in the third quarter of 2022, the project team caught up with the students who have successfully completed the Certificate IV in Resilience Qualification, to hear their feedback and experiences undertaking the program.
Mrs. Pauliane Basil, Senior Adaptation & Disaster Risk Management Officer in Vanuatu’s Ministry of Climate Change, shared the following with the team: “I want to say a big thanks to the USP PACRES Project for funding the resilience course certificate 4 in USP. I find the course really interesting, especially in the work that I do, my background does not really suit what I am doing now but this course has helped me a lot in understanding more about DRR as well as Climate Change, also some management skills, how to manage a team and how to analyse climate change impacts and how to adapt and mitigate these impacts. I look forward to finding connections again with some other courses in the future that can enhance my understanding of what I have already started with certificate 4.”
The responses from both the cohorts from Solomon Islands and Vanuatu generally point to the fact that participants enrolled into the program to either enhance their skills in resilience and/or to update their knowledge and skills in resilience. In both countries, the participants were early career professionals and/or those already actively engaged in the resilience space.
“Personally, this course has been helpful; it has provided me with more insight into things that I have already forgotten” remarked Mr. Lawrence Nodua, a Communications Officer for the CAUSE project, a World Bank and AusAID partnership project in the Solomon Islands.
He added, “I’ve been working on disaster relief projects. The course also allows me to do some climate change work with UNESCO, for which I am grateful. This course is especially useful for assisting the community in applying for small projects, implementing mitigation measures, or assisting the community, as we all know climate change is one of the Pacific Islands’ major issues. As a result, I personally recommend that people keep an eye out for such opportunities, apply, and if you get a chance, you will learn a lot of things. Thank you, USP, EU PACRES, for providing such an opportunity. It is a fully-funded course, for which I am extremely grateful. Thank you.”
The USP component of the EU-funded Intra-ACP GCCA+ PACRES programme is implemented in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), the Pacific Community (SPC), and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), while the SUPA Project is being implemented with SPREP and SPC.