When you learn something from people or a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.
This was highlighted by the former Treasurer of the Lawai Pottery Women Association, Veniana Devu Kunagado while highlighting the challenges faced by women in the association.
Kunagado says the worry at the moment is that women who are married into their village tend to take the art of pottery they were taught to them in the village to various resorts along the coast of Nadroga and sell it.
She says they want to avoid this so that tourists can visit their village and witness with their own eyes the art of pottery that the people of Lawai are born with.
She further says tourists contributed a lot to the community and in that way they want the business to be maintained within the village.
The 70-year-old says this business has contributed to the education of the children of Lawai, support the vanua financially and also church commitments.
Kunagado adds, if we are to preserve culture, we must continue to create it.
