The Pacific Recycling Foundation, is well placed to work with communities and families engaged in informal waste picking around the country.
This was highlighted by PRF Founder Amitesh Deo, who says there is a desperate call for strategies and targeted programs to improve the living and working conditions of families engaged in informal waste picking around the country, hence, the great need for relevant government agencies, civil society organizations and development partners to support their efforts.
He says these groups of people need targeted assistance and empowerment programs as they have been faced with unimaginable struggles for decades including a great deal of stigma such as rejection, discrimination and labeling from the society and even their relatives.
Deo says PRF is well placed to work with these communities and is also in the process of collecting relevant data on all individuals involved in waste picking.
He adds the PRF team visited a community in Tauvegavega in Ba who are involved in waste picking at the rubbish dump in Maururu where women and men from this community have to walk up a hill and through bushes to reach the dumpsite.
Deo says they spend the whole day at the dumpsite collecting recyclables and, in the process, go through very dangerous and difficult conditions and then carry large sacks full of recyclables to their homes where they sort the material and prepare the load to put food on their table.
He says these families do not have any other source of income and are totally dependent on waste picking.
The Founder says they also visited communities in Naria, Saweni and Kulukulu who are also involved in informal waste picking and facing enormous challenges on a daily basis.
Deo says the PRF, an offshoot of Waste Recyclers Fiji Limited, is a rights-based organization specially formed to raise awareness on recycling and provide structured support to individuals or groups involved in informal waste collection in Fiji and the Pacific, in particular women and members of the LGBTQI+ community.
