With Taveuni popularly known as the Garden Island of Fiji, it therefore follows that Tutu Rural Training Centre (TRTC) can very justifiably be a garden school. Tour Tutu and you will very quickly notice that such a description is not too far off the mark, for the Centre’s 480 hectares of land is a sanctuary of fruit bearing trees, flourishing green leafy vegetable farms and hectares of tall, well maintained timber forests. In fact, agriculture is a key part of training offered at TRTC. It enrols young adults, single young men or young women as well as young couples, and courses run from the short 6 months training to the 3 year long ones. Students learn the world’s best practices in agriculture like agroforestry, where cash crops of dalo (taro) and yaqona (kava) are grown underneath towering teak and sandalwood trees. Under this method of inter-cropping, students at TRTC get to appreciate a practical solution to counter deforestation, which became an environmental problem on Taveuni about a decade or so ago. When soil infertility became problematic in the Garden Island in recent years due to intensive farming and the heavy dependence on chemicals, TRTC introduced a course on soil health and good gardening practices of using green manure like mucuna beans, composting, compost tea and replanting nitrogen fixing trees on used land using alley cropping techniques. They also learn about vegetable farming enterprises, cultivating high quality fruit trees like rambutan, sweet carambola, dragon fruit, citrus and avocado to improve family income and nutrition, and clean energy in the form of hydro and solar power. That farming doesn’t have to be just one of the many things people do to past time, but can be a way of life seems to be the motto that Tutu students live by. Farming gives meaning, purpose and livelihood to one’s life. Indeed www.tutufiji.com says that part of TRTC’s mission is to provide ‘a place or presence in which people are empowered to become more autonomous.’ That autonomy, the ‘freedom from the oppressive structures of life in rural communities,’ TRTC prosses can be achieved through farming.
Father Petero Matairatu is the Director of Tutu Rural Training Centre. “Our mission statement has a focus on people taking charge of their lives in a changing world and becoming more autonomous. “This can become more threatening for many precisely because it is quite unpredictable and the old reliable ways seem to be no longer valued. “The cultural world seems to be in stark contrast to what they see in urban areas. “However in our programmes autonomy means being empowered to take charge of ones’ life so that there is a positive and hopeful future where there is dignity, pride and achievement in and utilising our land through farming.” Today TRTC offers four streams of courses: the Kevin Young Farmers Course, Single Women’s Course, Farming Couples’ Course and the Village Course. The Centre was established by the Society of Mary of the Roman Catholic Church, and offers places to students of Cakaudrove province, of which Taveuni Island is part of, as well as some students from the two adjacent provinces of Bua and Macuata on Fiji’s North. “The characteristics of our programmes are that they are reality-based, experimental and experiential. “This means that the starting point for all our participants is to recognise their communal cultural background which includes living with oppressive structures,” said Father Matairatu. “This must be acknowledged and there are ways to rise above it while contributing to village life which is carefully examined. “We have seen that our rural transformation programme has to be rooted in the realities of agriculture and village life where fruitfulness is seen. “In Tutu we use the word fruitfulness because we are called to bear fruit – fruit that will last.” The source for this story is www.tutufiji.com, the re-development of which was a project funded by FO4ACP programme. Check the new-look website to learn more about the work Tutu Rural Training Centre in Taveuni, Fiji does.
