Informal Settlements Upgrading and Network Building in Fiji: The next city-wide meeting...

As well as the community members who came to the meeting on Saturday passing on the information about the city-wide meeting on Tuesday afternoon, Hugo and I with a PCN member (Niko) and community member of Navutu (Simi) spent Sunday and Monday afternoons visiting different settlements talking about the idea of a city-wide network and telling people about Tuesday's meeting. In the settlements we visited people were interested in the idea - some communities have taken part in the PCN community mapping process and some have not yet.

And then on Tuesday members of seven communities came to the meeting, and some great discussions were had. Working on a large map of Lautoka, members identified where their community was, how many houses in their community, and what kind of land they live on. From this, they divided into two groups to talk about their situations; the groups were communities who live on state / crown land, and those who live on native land. Their history, problems, any projects, ideas were all discussed, and then presented to the group as a whole. All the members there swapped phone numbers, and all other community members were invited to come to Navutu on Thursday and Friday afternoon this week to work together more. The tentative date for a city-wide mapping workshop and PCN forum was set for the weekend of the 18th and 19th of September.