Leader appointed for Fiji free expression project

Transcript

The leader of a project to stimulate free expression in Fiji has been appointed by the British Council and Save the Children.

Funded by the European Union, Sivendra Michael will co-ordinate the social change project, Valuing Voices, for the next 30 months, which aims to empower youth and strengthen civil society.

Ben Robinson Drawbridge spoke with the British Council's New Zealand Director, Ingrid Leary, who says Mr Michael can relate to all the groups that make up Fiji's diverse population.

INGRID LEARY: He has a very strong economics, finance, and academic aspect to him but equally this is a project that involves a lot of creativity and it's about marginalised voices so you can imagine that it starts dealing with diverse communities, diverse people, and we feel that Sivendra being a local person who has studied academically, he's worked in human rights before and he also does have Fijian and Indian heritage so he's going to mix really well with the people there.

BEN ROBINSON DRAWBRIDGE: It seems what he's tasked to do is to inspire marginalised communities to speak out, is that fair?

IL: Yes, he will be co-ordinating that so some of that will be about him leading on to inspire those groups through for example, training active citizens to be able to empower themselves, to start their own campaign, that would be particularly in rural areas for example. Equally he would be co-ordinating to bring in expert trainers either from the local environment or from overseas to provide some of the training.

BRD: Is the internet the platform that you expect he'll most be using?

IL: The internet is part of it, we know that youth in Fiji are very active on Facebook. A lot of them are digital natives they feel very comfortable with new technologies and to a certain degree they feel quite safe in that space because it's a space where older people don't traditionally convene. So this project is very much about empowering youth voice, our research has shown that youth have been disenfranchised for some time on the political system or feel that they're disenfranchised because they have become used to situations of military rule, they're now experiencing democracy and they're not so confident about the relevance of their own voice. So we need to work in the spaces where they feel comfortable to express themselves and also upskill them in the capacity to use those skills powerfully and that's why we're looking particularly at social media and also at art forms where youth feel comfortable about expressing themselves, so through making films on cell phones, through song writing, spoken word, theatre and so on.

BRD: Do you think they'll have the confidence to critique politics in a country like Fiji?

IL: Our approach is to get them first speaking about issues which concern them, now they may be political issues or they may be other issues. We believe that by empowering youth to speak out on any issues that concern them they will naturally then become more involved in the political situation. It's not our intention to make youth political it is our intention to have them know that their voice is relevant on any issues that concern them, whether it's their own concern, concerns of marginalised groups, human rights or whether it's politics.

Ben Robinson Drawbridge also spoke with Sivendra Michael, who says it's not just the youth of Fiji he hopes to empower.

SIVENDRA MICHAEL: Basically we are looking at all marginalised groups, not just women and children. The activities are focused around amplifying youth voices because we feel that youth voices have been disenfranchised due to the political issues that had come about over the years before we had a change to democracy.

BEN ROBINSON DRAWBRIDGE: You also want to use art as a method of advocacy, can you explain that to me?

SM: We will use guitar, song writing competitions, where we focus on the composition of the song. Creative art does not have a significant role in the existing education curriculum so using artforms like guitar, visual arts, spoken word, and mobile technology will create a platform for youth, and also for schools and other curriculum to advocate for issues. This is something we call innovative means, innovative in a sense that they are able to use these artforms to advocate for issues and be more aware of how digital media can play a fundamental role and touch the hearts of the youth and the people by large.

BRD: It sounds like it could be quite a joyous experience releasing all this kind of creative energy you must be excited.

SM: I'm truly excited, I come from an economic finance background and have worked in the area of policy and using creative arts is very challenging  but at the same time it's going to be a fundamental change to the way people are able to express themselves and the way that people would be able to advocate for the issues of their concern so that we can generate discussions, that may be taboo in some contexts. So one of the discussions could be gender based violence, the one can be child labour but there are various other issues, it can be political, either freedom of expression and so forth and I know it's going to make a fundamental change in the community by large and in Fiji as a country as a whole.