Podcast conversation with guest, Isoa Vakarewa

Country Manager - Fiji Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environment (RISE) Program

https://www.rise-program.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/revitalising-informal-settlements-and-their- environments/?viewAsMember=true

Hosted by Melissa Robertson, Arts Nexus Studio, Babinda, Queensland

NOTE: please excuse the many background sounds of nature, people and ambient venue sounds

Soundtrack provided by

• "Future Calling" by Elani Butler / Spotify / Written In Bone
• Melanesian Drums by Airileke Ingram / Spotify

https://www.earophaustralia.com/ https://earoph.org/ https://pacificurbanpartnership.org/

Isoa Vakarewa ...

is of I Taukei Decent (indigenous Fijian) with a background in Public Health having started his career in the area of Adolescent Health and Development, through the Fiji Ministry of Health. Isoa's work then was in the area of sexual health with HIV awareness. Following that he moved into the NGO space where his work focussed on rural WASH programs integrating Disaster Risk Reduction as well as Socio Economic Development. Always with a passion for development particularly working with grassroots people, he has worked in the area of development and has opened up his understanding of the many, facets of development and importance of engaging with key stakeholders for the successful delivery of programs. RISE is Isoa's first opportunity working with informal settlements and it’s been as rewarding as it has been challenging. Hopefully through the proof of concept we’re aiming to provide in the RISE program, we should be able to address access to services such as waste water management for urban informal settlements in Fiji and the Pacific. Informal settlements are home to more than 1 billion people worldwide who face adverse living conditions and suffer from poor health and wellbeing as a result of inadequate water and sanitation services, and environmental exposure to pathogens, pollutants and disease vectors. RISE’s vision is to improve the health and wellbeing of residents of urban informal settlement across the developing world by improving the environment in which these communities live. To achieve this, RISE is trialling a holistic water-sensitive approach to upgrading sanitation, drainage and climate resilience through a randomised control trial (RCT) involving 12 informal settlements in Suva, Fiji, and 12 settlements in Makassar, Indonesia – half of which are being upgraded as ‘intervention’ settlements under the RCT, and the other dozen ‘control’ settlements to receive upgrades following completion of the RCT. RISE is collecting the first-ever rigorous scientific evidence of the human and environmental impacts of this water- sensitive revitalisation approach to inform policies and investments to improve living conditions for residents of informal settlements around the world.

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