Positive flow of funding for RSE communities

An organisation designed to give back to communities who provide RSE workers to NZ’s viticulture and horticulture industries is partnering with global charity UNICEF in the Pacific Islands.

After learning of the Village to Village Charitable Trust’s efforts to develop and fund entrepreneurship by RSE workers, UNICEF have collaborated with the Marlborough-based trust to co-fund sanitation facilities in schools in the Solomon Islands.

One of a planned 39 bathroom blocks will be installed at Vavalu Primary School in Guadalcanal, with Alapa Viticultural Services, co-funding the build through their relationship as a key sponsor of Village to Village (V2V).

Trust Chair Tracy Atkin says that after realising both organisations were working with Pacific Island countries focusing on community projects with impact, it made sense to connect and collaborate as funds raised by V2V would be quadrupled by UNICEF Aotearoa.

“This funding will transform the daily lives of children in the Solomon Islands, especially girls, by improving hygiene, health and school attendance community wide.

“In New Zealand if there are no toilets open schools must be closed so when schools have no clean water and bathrooms at all it’s a no-brainer to support.

“We’ve been working with ChildFund on similar efforts in Kiribati, as diarrhea is a serious issue for many children in the Pacific Islands so providing clean water and hand washing stations only has positive flow-on effects for the whole community”.

Tracy was pleased the Trust’s efforts in fostering entrepreneurship, education scholarships, clean energy cookstoves and community projects is being recognised by international NGO’s, since forming in 2021

“They can see the impact we’re making by helping people in the Pacific Islands start small businesses and giving no interest loans, business mentoring and financial literacy education as part of their reintegration strategy when they return home.

“We didn’t know at the time that UNICEF was doing a study in Vanuatu on the impact on communities of RSE workers and how reintegration could be supported.

“Obviously there’s hardships in terms of them leaving their families and coming over here, and that’s exactly why we set up Village to Village so we were completely aligned with their report that highlighted the need for more resilience and more support for reintegration.

“By funding zero-interest loans for businesses, we target these entrepreneurial ideas with ripple effects to provide more than just remittance money, but make permanent impacts on these communities who provide the backbone of the wine industry in Marlborough, and other primary industries across NZ.

“We’re always looking for the next way that we can equip RSE workers to help them meet the needs of their communities at home”.