4 December 2014
ESTABLISHING COMMUNICATION WITH RURAL COMMUNITIES IN SOLOMON ISLANDS
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The SIDT Media Team- Morgan Pettersson, Andy Tabaa and Jordy Joel Toiraena’
In Honiara, there are two China Towns. There is the ‘New China Town’ and the ‘Old China Town’ which is situated close by, at the foot of West Kola Ridge Hills.
At the ‘Old China Town, just next to the Honiara High School, is Morgan Pettersson’s office , a two storey wooden building. This building is home to the Solomon Islands Development Trust or SIDT.
Morgan came to the Solomon Islands as a volunteer under the Australian Volunteers for International (AVI), an Australian Government funded volunteer initiative, around 6 months ago.
There are approximately 60 Australian Volunteers who work in the country every year in a variety of fields from medical, to legal, the media and education.
She’s working as a Website Coordinator with SIDT, an indigenous non-government organisation founded in 1982. Since its establishment, it has been one of the primary advocates of development at the community level in Solomon Islands.
‘I work with the Solomon Islands Development Trust’s Media Team’ she tells me.
For more than 3 decades the organisation has worked to improve the quality of village life through education and awareness projects, community theatre and radio on issues around health, sanitation, nutrition, governance and the environment.
‘My role as the website coordinator involves overseeing the establishment of SIDT’s website, which is set to be launched this month, December and we are really looking forward to the launching.’
‘A typical day at work for me, I come in in the morning, check my emails and spend the rest of the day working with Andy Tabaa, the Graphic Designer, trying to find information for the website and working on completing the website.’
‘The thing I enjoy the most about working here is the relationship I have built with the other media tem members, we spend a lot of the day laughing and joking and just having fun.’
‘I like the daily interactions with my work colleagues, slowly learning pidgin, and learning about the life here and about the culture here, things like that.’
‘I love travelling around the Solomon Islands, to get out and see the different provinces, the different island and to learn more about the different culture in each province. I have been to Choiseul, Isabel, Western Central, Makira, Malaita and Guadalcanal. I loved being out in the province provinces, it is so different to Honiara.’