Team OT Fiji
Team OT Fiji
Bula! (Hello in Fijian). We are one of two teams of Glasgow Caledonian University occupational therapy students on a virtual placement with Think Pacific writing about our action projects and translating them into occupational therapy practice.
Get in Touch
About the virtual internship
The 6-week bespoke internship we have been a part of with Think Pacific is a programme developed to support Fiji’s 5 and 20-year national development plan (NDP). The NDP looks at increasing socio-economical outcomes to create a more progressive and inclusive society. The internship allows its participants to gain extensive knowledge on Fiji and Fijian culture. It then provides the opportunity for interns to select an action project by one of its 80 partners within Fiji. All the NGO’s involved and the projects are all working towards supporting Fiji in meeting the goals set out within the NDP as well as the UN sustainable development goals.
The Team
Aminat
Aminat is a second year MSc Occupational Therapy Student from Glasgow Caledonian University. She has a great passion for humanity and loves making meaningful impacts in people's lives. She believes in the ideals of equality, diversity and inclusion. She also recognise human right to include choice, dignity, respect and independence, and tries to promote this in her everyday life.
Aminat's Project
A SILENT CRY!
This project is about creating awareness about violence against women in Fiji.
MY THINK PACIFIC EXPERIENCE AND ACTION PROJECT, AND HOW THEY RELATE WITH OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY.
Creating awareness about violence against women in Fiji.
ABOUT MY THINK PACIFIC EXPERIENCE AND HOW IT RELATES TO OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY
One of the beautiful things about being on placement with Think Pacific is that it gives you the rare opportunity to learn about the Fijian people, their culture, history, ways of life and the Fijian development plan. It also avails you with the opportunity to learn about socio-cultural challenges faced by people living in Fiji, and gives you a chance to contribute meaningfully to the development of the Fijian people and their communities through an action project of your choice.
The Think Pacific placement is structured in 5 phases which is similar to the occupational therapy process (Duncan, 2012; Think Pacific, 2021). These phases are known as the 5D process and comprise of the discussion phase, discovery phase, the decide phase, the design phase, and the deliver phase (Think Pacific, 2021).
The discussion phase starts from the beginning of the placement and lasts through out the placement. This phase entails building meaningful relationships with other interns, learning about new perspectives, and developing a global approach to problem solving through virtual collaborations and communication on video conferencing platforms. At the start of the placement, the discussion phase can be likened to be part of the information gathering and the initial assessment stages of the occupational therapy process, while at subsequent stages of the placement, it can be likened to the review stages of the occupational therapy process where interventions are evaluated and re-evaluated for their efficacy in addressing occupational barriers and actualising treatment goals.
The discovery phase can be likened to be part of that aspect of the occupational therapy process that involves information gathering and identification of occupational barriers/problems, as it entails learning about Fiji and the Fijian people, their culture, history, ways of life, sociocultural challenges, and the Fijian development plan, from information gathered through interactive classes, self-study/research and insightful discussions with Practice educators, Mentors, and other interns.
The decide phase can be likened to the goal setting aspect of the occupational therapy process as it entails choosing an organisation and an action project that will have a meaningful impact on the Fijian society and its people.
The design phase can be likened to the intervention planning aspect of the occupational therapy process as it involves a lot of brainstorming on creative ideas to make the action project successful and culturally acceptable to the target audience. It is also the phase where the main part of the action project is developed.
The deliver phase is synonymous to the implementation stage of the occupational therapy process as it is the stage where the action project is presented to the Practice educator, the Think Pacific team of Interns and Mentors, and then delivered to an appointed Think Pacific Mentor who serves as an intermediary between the chosen organisation and the intern involved in the development of the project.
MY ACTION PROJECT AND HOW IT RELATES WITH OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY
The choice of my action project was informed by my passion for humanity and my believe in a fair and equal society. The project was developed in response to the alarming rate of violence against women and girls in Fiji, for a feminist organisation which empowers women, promotes their rights and advocates for gender equality across Fiji. It is a project that is informed by the Fiji National Development Plan (Think Pacific, 2021), which seeks to transform Fiji to a more progressive, vibrant, and inclusive society for the benefit of all Fijians irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, physical and intellectual abilities, and their geographical location.
The process of developing the project was in accordance with the 5D Process (Think Pacific, 2021), which shares similarities with the occupational therapy process (Duncan, 2012). The research aspect of my action project was the discovery phase of the 5D process which is synonymous with the information gathering and problem identification stage of the OT process. During this stage, the information gathered gave me an overview of the problem identified in my action project, so that I was able to assess the magnitude of the problem through statistics gathered from online resources. The design phase of my action project can be likened to the intervention planning stage of the OT process as it involved lots of creative work carried out to make my project culturally acceptable to my target audience. The delivery phase of my action project can be considered as the implementation stage of the OT process as it entails the dissemination of the content created through my action project to the public.
At the start of the action project, I used the PEOP Model (Baum, Christensen&Bass,2015), to identify my client’s occupational needs (Promotion of the rights of women), occupational barriers (including the Fijian Culture and society, and limited funds) and enablers (Think Pacific, Internet). With this in mind, I ensured that my action project was designed in a way that it will be financially sustainable for my client, and culturally acceptable to my target audience.
During the research phase of my action project, I found two interesting but contrasting Fijian traditions that impacts on the life of the Fijian woman and her place in the Fijian society. While one celebrates women and promotes their independence, the other tradition which is the dominant one suppresses the Fijian woman, robs her of her voice and independence, and makes her socially excluded from participating fully as a valued member of her society, and in making decisions in matters that affects her as a woman and an individual.
According to the Ituakei traditions of Fiji, an Ituakei woman (an indigeneous Fijian woman) is considered as a highly respected entity in the human cycle, hence; she is celebrated from birth and throughout her lifetime in every stage of her development as a woman, including menstruation, courtship, marriage, childbirth and even in death (Daurewa, 2019). In her society, the Fijian woman plays roles that complements that of her male counterparts and is given equal opportunities as a man to own land by virtue of her birth to a landowning unit or through her associations (Daurewa, 2019).She is recognised as a valued member of her society for her contribution to its development, especially through her decision-making roles as a leader in her clan, tribe, or province, and her ability to build peace and sustain her society politically and economically through mentoring, support, and co-operation with other members of her society (Daurewa, 2019).
However, despite this beautiful aspect of the Fijian culture that celebrates womanhood and women for their contributions to the society, there is also a macho culture in Fiji that treats men as kings and women as their subjects (Daurewa, 2019; Tarai, 2016). The Fiji man is made so powerful by this culture, that his authority cannot be questioned by a woman or a younger man (Tarai, 2016). He makes orders and the woman is expected to obey him without any hesitation (Tarai, 2016). Hence, the Fijian macho culture subjects the Fijian woman to different forms of abuse by her male counterpart, and because his authority cannot be questioned by a woman, the Fijian man easily gets away with abuses meted on the woman, while the woman is blamed for being abused or violated because she did something wrong, was seductively dressed or was in the wrong place at the wrong time (United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,2010; Tarai, 2016). According to this tradition a man has the right to beat up his wife if he has a good reason for it, and domestic violence is seen as a family affair that should be resolved within families (Amnesty International, 2010; Daurewa, 2019).)
In recent times, violence against women and girls across Fiji reached a record high to the extent that the country can now be considered as one of the most dangerous places to be a female (Kumar, 2019). Violence against women and girls is not just a violation of their rights as humans, it traumatises them and kills their self-esteem. It robs them of their joy and prevents them from actualising their dreams as they become withdrawn, socially excluded, and unproductive as they are unable to participate fully in the society and carry out roles that are meaningful and purposeful to them due to the physical, emotional, and psychological trauma they suffer (Van Bijnen, 2019; World Health Organisation, 2021). Hence, violence against women and girls can be considered as a form of occupational/social injustice, as it violates their rights to carry out roles of their choice and participate as valued members of their society.
Occupational therapy is a profession that address inequalities and promotes social inclusion by enabling people to participate as valued members of the society irrespective of their occupational potential or barriers (Braveman et.al., 2009). Social inclusion can be defined as the process of improving the terms in which people participate in the society, irrespective of their social identity, by promoting their rights and creating opportunities for them to live to the fullest of their potential (World Bank, 2021). Social inclusion promotes diversity, by focusing on people’s sense of belonging and facilitating social equality and participation (Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists, 2016). The World Health Organisation (2002) defined participation as a person’s involvement in life situations (World Health Organisation, 2002). Meaningful participation requires that people have the right to partake in decisions that affect them (World Health Organisation, 2021).
One of the numerous ways occupational therapists promote social inclusion and participation, is by working collaboratively with other professionals that are interested in everyday life, participation, occupation, and justice; and also, by working with communities, researchers, educators, leaders and policy makers (Braverman et.al., 2009). This is similar to the role I played in developing this action project, as I worked collaboratively with my Think Pacific Mentors, and also consulted my Practice educator for guidance from time to time, in order to address the socio-cultural barriers of the Fijian women and girls to participation and social inclusion, through content creation for my chosen organisation.
Just like occupational therapy, the aim of this project was to promote social inclusion by making the Fijian communities safer for women and girls so they can explore their hidden potentials and participate fully as valued members of their society, through advocacy for their rights, by creating awareness about gender based violence against women and girls in Fiji, and also by sensitising the Fijian public especially the males about the impact of gender based violence on the health and wellbeing of Fijian women and girls, as well as their participation in the society.
Using the PEOP Model (Baum, Christensen&Bass,2015), I was able to identify gender based violence, the Fijian macho culture, and the Fijian societal perception of the place of a woman, as barriers to the Fijian women and girls to participation. Hence, I designed my action project in a way that my message will be culturally acceptable to the Fijian men and the Fijian society at large. It is anticipated that with this type of message readily available to the Fijian public, the Fijian men will develop a positive attitude towards their female counterparts in the long run, and the Fijian communities will be more enabling for the females to participate fully in their society and live their lives to the fullest of their potentials.
One of the major lessons I learnt from this placement experience and my action project is that, occupational therapy is a very diverse profession that can be easily adapted for addressing various health and social problems in diverse settings. However, it is important for Occupational therapists to familiarise themselves with the culture and traditional beliefs of individuals or groups of people, when planning interventions aimed at addressing socio-cultural barriers to occupation or participation. Without doing this, any intervention planned might be a waste of time or counterproductive as it may not be culturally acceptable to the recipient.
REFERENCES
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, 2010. Briefing to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women: Violence against Women in Fiji. Available from: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CEDAW/Shared%20Documents/FJI/INT_CEDAW_NGO_FJI_46_8767_E.pdf
BAUM, C., CHRISTIANSEN, C., & BASS, J., 2015.Person-Envronment-Occupation-Performance (PEOP) Model. In: BAUM, C., CHRISTIANSEN, C., & BASS, J. Occupational Therapy Performance, Participation, Well-being. 4th ed. Thorofare, NJ: Slack.
BRAVEMAN, B., BASS-HAUGEN, J.D., 2009.From the Desks of the Guest Editors—Social justice and health disparities: An evolving discourse in occupational therapy research and intervention. American Journal of Occupational Therapy. Available from: https://ajot.aota.org
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPISTS, 2016. Occupational therapy stories and facts. Available from: https://www.caot.ca/site/aboutot/reallifestories?nav=sideba
COLLEGE OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPISTS., 2017. Professional Standards for Occupational Therapy Practice, Revise ed. Available from: www.rcot.co.uk › rcot-publications › downloads › prof...
DAUREWA, A. S.,2019. Understanding women and their spaces: A Fijian Experience in the 21st Century. Available from: http://friendfiji.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Research-3-Understanding-Women-compressed.pdf
DUNCAN E. A.S., 2012. Foundations for Practice in Occupational Therapy. 5th ed Churchill Livingstone: Elsevier.
KUMAR, 2019. 983 cases of domestic violence and 91 rape cases as of October, most victims below age of 15 - Fiji Women's Crisis Centre. Available from: 983 cases of domestic violence and 91 rape cases as of October, most victims below age of 15 - Fiji Women's Crisis Centre (fijivillage.com)
TARAI., J, 2016. Re-thinking the Fijian Man. Available from: Re-thinking the Fijian Man | Jope Tarai | TEDxSuva - YouTube
THINK PACIFIC, 2021. The Think Pacific Intern Handbook. Available at: TP Virtual Internship - Intern Handbook 2021.docx - Google Drive
THINK PACIFIC, 2021. The Think Pacific discover. Available from: Welcome to Your Virtual Internship - (Discovery Phase) | Think Pacific
THINK PACIFIC, 2021. Fiji National Development. Available from: Our Impact | Think Pacific
UNITED NATIONS ENTITY FOR GENDER EQUALITY AND THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN,1992. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: General recommendations made by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Available from: General recommendations made by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (un.org)
UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN,2010. Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women – Fiji. Available from: Treaty bodies Download (ohchr.org)
VAN BINJEN., M., 2019. Domestic Violence in Fiji: Changing Masculine Societies for Peace. Available from: Domestic Violence in Fiji: Changing Masculine Societies for Peace | GPPAC
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, 2021.Violence against. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women
WORLD BANK., 2021. Social Inclusion [online]. United Nations. Available from: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/social-inclusion
WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION, 2002. Towards a Common Language for Functioning, Disability and Health: ICF. Available from: https://www.who.int/classifications/icf/icfbeginnersguide.pdf
WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION., 2021. Participation. Available from: WHO | Participation
Bethany's Project
Bula! And welcome to my section. I am going to share with you just a little bit about the logo design project I undertook for my action project. And how this can be related back to the occupational therapy process and theories.
The design process and occupational therapy....how they link.
The first stage of the placement was to get familiar with the think pacific content and how the internship is structured. Think pacific split the intern process into the 5 D’s: Discover, *Discuss, Decide, Design and Deliver. Discussion is encouraged throughout the placement with emphasis put on interns to engage with each other and with their personal mentors. When breaking down these sections, you can see how there is transparency with the occupational therapy process (Duncan, 2012). This process starts with referral and works all the way to discharge and final evaluation. It encompasses various stages including an initial assessment, detailed assessment, a treatment plan, implementation of the treatment plan, a review and then a final review. Discover was definitely the meatiest of the phases. There was great importance placed on really knowing the culture and community you are working with. We can link this to the information gathering aspect of the Occupational Therapy process.
This is a crucial step for building our knowledge, therapeutic relationships, and development to the next stages of the process. The decide phase incorporated using your learned knowledge of Fiji to choose an action project either/ or relevant to your interests or a passion project. This action planning part of the project gave us the time to reassess our motivations, interests and goals in order to best select the appropriate project. The action planning was then put into action during the design phase. We could think about this as the intervention stage of the process. It was at this stage that we implemented our ideas, learned new skills and strategies, and set out fulfilling the goals we had set for ourselves when beginning the internship. The deliver phase was then the opportunity for evaluation. We presented our action projects to our think pacific mentors, practice educator and finally to the larger think pacific community. This would then be shared with the Organization who would decide on whether they wanted to implement the design that had been created or not. Throughout this stage we were offered feedback and encouraged to engage in self-evaluation. This gave us the opportunity to reflect on whether our outcome measures had been met and to review the designs.
The action project I selected was to design a logo for the Fiji National kidney Centre, which had very recently opened its doors in January 2021, and was looking for an image to represent them and to help spread awareness. My intrigue in global health and my chosen career path certainly sparked interest when I first saw the project. There were various steps I took to reach and complete my project including research, creating a vision board showcasing the evidence I had pulled from my research, implementation and design and then reviewing. When thinking about this process in the context of occupational therapy, the Occupational Therapy Intervention Process Model (OTIPM) sprang to mind (Dancza & Rogers, 2018). The stages of this model are very clearly detailed and laid out, they offer support in remaining occupation focused through each different element. The steps within this process; evaluation and goal setting, intervention and re-evaluation mirror the steps I took to complete my action project. Going into the placement the first stage was to think about my own personal and professional goals, when beginning the action project, I then had to think about the organization’s goals. Then came the evaluation, a large amount of this comprised of information gathering, on the organization, cultural elements and other health organizations that had created logos. Looking at where they went right or wrong.
Once the evaluation was completed, I moved on to the implementation. I had to select a strategy that would enable me to fulfil mine and the organizations goals. Once I had various prototypes put together, I then reached out to my think pacific mentor and fellow interns for feedback and a poll on what were the favourites. This gave me the opportunity to re-evaluate what I had designed. An important part of the re-evaluating stage was to continually refer to the action projects profile. Throughout this process remaining focused on the needs and aims of the organization, being aware of the population who would be accessing their services, using the knowledge gained on Fijian culture, enabled me to fulfil and complete my action project and meet the organizations as well as my own goals. The experience has been very formative, I have learnt many new skills, have pushed myself out of my comfort zone to gain these new skills. Have experienced how crucial peer support is and the impact of successful team working. It has benefited both my personal and professional development as well as securing within myself what the next stage of my own career will be. Most importantly it has given us the opportunity to contribute to the wonderful Fijian society and their national development plan.
References
DANCZA, K, & RODGER, S., 2018. Implementing Occupation-Centred Practice: A Practical Guide for Occupational Therapy Practice Learning. Milton, UK: Taylor & Francis Group.
DUNCAN, E.A.S. 2012 Foundations for practice in Occupational Therapy, 5th edition. Edinburgh Elsevier; Churchill Livingstone.
Jennie's Project
Fiji doesn’t have any occupational therapists working in the country at all. Despite this, there are interventions being carried out which would fall under the occupational therapy umbrella and using the Kawa Model (Iwama, 2006), I tried to incorporate some occupational perspectives into some of the resources I made for a youth mental health organisation working hard to reduce the number of suicides in Fiji.
62% of the Fijian population is under the age of 35 (Think Pacific, 2021) and suicide is the second leading cause of death in 15–29-year-olds and the third leading cause of death in 15–19-year-olds (World Health Organization (WHO), 2019) making the work of voluntary organisation,
Youth Champs 4 Mental Health (YC4MH), essential.
My brief was to create marketing materials such as infographics, social media banners, signature banners, posters and brochures to assist YC4MH with their advocacy campaigns.
Suicide kills 800,000 people worldwide a year - one person every 40 seconds (WHO, 2019). The rate of suicide in Fiji is high with one completed suicide approximately every three days recorded between January and August 2020 (Crime statistics unit, 2021). The Lifeline Fiji charity report an attempted suicide every 36 hours (Lifeline Fiji, 2021) which is a very large number and the World Health Organization consider suicide to be preventable (WHO, 2019) which is why YC4MH’s work is so vital in Fiji.
Dr Annie Crookes, a psychologist from the University of the South Pacific suggests that a reason for the high suicide rate in Fiji may be due to increasing alcohol and substance misuse, specifically methamphetamine addiction and suggests that one way to support people in Fiji with their mental health concerns is to build on prevention strategies and use the resources that are already in place around people such as their environment, social supports, government and non-government organisations and charities like Youth Champs 4 Mental Health (YC4MH) (Crookes, 2021).
YC4MH are working hard to reduce the number of attempts and completed suicides in the area and spread the positive word about mental health care and wellbeing. They have clearly been really busy throughout the pandemic and asked Think Pacific to get some interns to produce materials and resources for them so they can continue their fantastic work. YC4MH report a 100% success rate with their young people and have never lost a person to suicide with whom they have engaged and supported. That is incredible work and I was delighted to have the opportunity to play a tiny part in this. Another of YC4MH’s aims is to reduce stigma around mental health issues and I’m hoping that some of the posters and infographics I produced will help them to achieve this.
The Fiji National Development Plan (Ministry of Economy, 2017, p40) outlines in their health and medical services goals, policies and strategies section the wish to “Expand investment in approaches to address non-communicable diseases including mental health and injuries both within and beyond the health sector”. With charities like YC4MH offering support to people in the country who are experiencing mental health issues with only a volunteer base of “staff”, it’s clear that more mental health investment is right to be on the development plan and be a priority in Fiji and this aligns well with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 3 – good health and wellbeing (United Nations, 2021).
Crookes (2021) agrees and suggests that rather than wanting to Westernise mental health care in the Pacific region, it’s important to consider the community values and cultures that already exist in the country and work with these to produce culturally appropriate measures to help people manage their mental wellbeing. She continues by suggesting that it might be possible to bring some psychological tools and models from the West and adapt them to fit with the people of the Pacific to ensure that they feel heard and understood while building an evidence base within the region as currently there is very little research available (Crookes, 2021).
The Kawa model (Iwama, 2006) can be used as an assessment and an intervention tool and co-ordinates well with the Five Ways to Wellbeing Framework (Aked et al, 2008) which I also used within resources I created as they both fitted so well with the work that YC4MH is already doing and offer an occupational therapy slant to the work I was producing for the organisation. Using the Kawa Model (Iwama, 2006) felt more culturally appropriate for the Fijian population rather than some of the more Western occupational therapy models. Research from New Zealand has shown that using the 5 Ways to Wellbeing framework in a Māori culture works really well as it aligns well with Māori concepts of health and wellbeing (Mackay et al, 2019) and I found a similar alignment with Fijian concepts and so hope that the combination of Kawa and 5 Ways will work well for the Fijian population. Another advantage of the Kawa is that it can be used by anyone; children, women, men, groups, communities etc (Iwama, 2006).
Within the Think Pacific internship we followed “the 5 D’s” (Think Pacific, 2021) which align closely with the occupational therapy process.
Discover was the first phase where we immersed ourselves in learning about the Fijian people, environment, culture, history, health concerns and so much more. This is similar to the information gathering part of the OT process.
Discussion was where we conducted informal assessments of various projects helping so many groups of people and assessed what their different needs were and started to identify the potential occupational participation challenges they faced.
Decide was where we chose our project and set goals for ourselves as well as worked towards goals set by the different organisations for the people they support.
Design phase aligns with treatment planning and implementation of the resources I created for the project.
Deliver is when we handed our resources over to Think Pacific to present to our various organisations and let them continue with the OT process of assessing whether the resources are useful or need edited etc and this makes the projects sustainable.
A fantastic and innovative learning experience which fitted really well with the practice-based placement module.
References
AKED, J., MARKS, N., CORDON, C. & THOMPSON, S., 2008. Five Ways to Wellbeing: A Report Presented to the Foresight Project on Communicating the Evidence Base for Improving People’s Well-being https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/five-ways-to-wellbeing-1.pdf
CRIME STATISTICS UNIT, 2021. Suicide and Attempted Suicide Cases. Crime statistics unit. https://thinkpacific.com/
CROOKES, A, 2021. https://thinkpacific.com/
IWAMA, M.K., 2006. The Kawa model: culturally relevant occupational therapy. New York: Churchill Livingstone.
LIFELINE FIJI, 2021. https://www.lifelinefiji.com/about/
MacKAY, L., EGLI, V., BOOKER, L.J., & PRENDERGAST, K. 2019. New Zealand’s engagement with the Five Ways to Wellbeing: evidence from a large cross-sectional survey. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1177083X.2019.1603165
MINISTRY OF ECONOMY, 2017. 5-Year & 20-Year National Development Plan – Transforming Fiji. https://www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/policies/v.php?id=59159
THINK PACIFIC, 2021. Fiji’s National Development Plan. https://thinkpacific.com/about-think-pacific/fiji-national-development-plan/
UNITED NATIONS, 2021. The 17 goals. https://sdgs.un.org/goals
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, 2019. Suicide https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide
Zobia's Project
Bula! In this section, I'll be talking a little about my experience with Think Pacific and my Action Project that I prepared and how it relates to Occupational Therapy!
The Importance of Early Childhood Education and Mobile Kindy
My TP placement
As already mentioned, Think Pacific uses the 5 D’s that link in and are very similar to the Occupational Therapy Intervention Process Model (Duncan, 2020). As I moved through this process, I learned a great deal and immersed myself within the Fijian culture, community and history and how each person within their community plays a very important role. This was similar to the information gathering part in the occupational therapy process.
Attending the weekly culture series were very interesting and informative as I was able to learn about the Fijian language, cuisine and traditions that still take place. When I was learning about the different languages spoken in Fiji, I noticed that Fijian Hindi was one of them and as an Urdu & Punjabi speaker – languages which are extremely similar to Indian Hindi – I was curious as to how similar the languages were. I then decided to do my own research and found that although the dialect was very different, I was still able to make out the main words and general message from the Fijian Hindi Language! This was extremely interesting to me as before starting the Internship with Think Pacific, I wasn’t aware that Hindi was spoken in countries other than India.
As I went through these phases, I begun to identify where there were potentially gaps for OT input through looking at all the charities and organisations that Think Pacific work with.
My Action Project and relation to Occupational Therapy
Mobile Kindy are a non-profit organisation whose main aim is to provide quality early childhood care & education to the most disadvantaged children within marginalised communities in Fiji.
Mobile Kindy was created to bridge the gap between the government and the education system as there is no funding available for children at preschool and kindergarten ages.
It is a multisectoral organisation – they care for the children’s wellbeing in terms of health, nutrition and the children’s wellbeing, as well as education. It was identified that the parents are concerned more with feeding the kids than their education and so when the volunteers or educators go out to the areas, they take food with them. They always ensure there is milk, fruit and sandwiches for the children to eat during their lessons.
The Action project I chose was Researching grants and Funding resources for a Non-Government Organisation (NGO) called Mobile Kindy.
Searching for funding is relevant within the occupational therapy profession. Many therapists need to search for grants and funding for a number of different projects they may be involved in. These types of grants include research, planning and demonstration grants. (Doll, 2010) states that occupational therapists can use the skills for finding the right grant to be successful in grant writing for community-based practice.
To do so, I first had to plan exactly what types of resources I was looking for and where I might find them. Once I had found the resources, I decided that I wanted to present the finding using a Canva presentation. When reviewing the resources, I found that some of the grants had to have a UK base or bank account and therefore I had to do some more research to find relevant grants. Much like the review stage in the Occupational Therapy stage, I had to adapt some parts of the presentation to ensure that the resources I was providing to Mobile Kindy were relevant to them and that they were eligible to apply. I also included a traffic light system to indicate to Mobile Kindy what resources I felt should have a higher priority in terms of application deadlines and what resources I think should be applied for in the first instance. After many amendments and with the help and feedback of my Think Pacific Mentor and Anita at GCU, I managed to complete the presentation.
The right to education is a basic human right and this organisation looks to fulfil these similar to a way in which an Occupational Therapist would. This is by addressing the gaps and taking action to bridge the gaps to ensure that the original goals and aims are being met.
Early Childhood Education is important. The inequality in the development of children’s capabilities can produce negative social and economic outcomes that can be prevented by investing in disadvantaged children and their families (Heckman, 2011). The need for funding is essential to keep this organisation sustainable to provide the services to children who otherwise wouldn’t be able to meet this basic human right nor address the inequalities within early childhood development.
The work that Mobile Kindy do has great importance not only for the children but also for their parents and carers. They also provide information and advice on how to speak to and educate their children. Occupational Therapists would also offer advice and information to the families, parents or carers of the children, much like Mobile Kindy's involvement of parents in their children's education. A study in 1995 supported the message that most of the critical brain development in children takes place in the first few years of life, before they reach nursery/kindergarten age (Hart & Riseley, 1995). The study showed that children from wealthier families would be introduced to and accumulate experience with approximately 30 million more words than children from the more disadvantaged families by the time they reached 4 years old. Educating the parents on how to speak to their children at an early age will influence their development as the study also revealed that the children in wealthier or “professional” families would accumulate more instances of encouraging feedback than discouraging feedback.
Throughout the placement, I also become much more proficient in using different programmes and services like Slack, Canva and Google Calendar. These helped with my presentation making skills and time management which I will take into the future in terms of helping with time management and for future presentations. All in all, the whole experience was extremely informative and enjoyable. I managed to learn more about the Fijian culture and identify a gap where Occupational Therapy input was needed and therefore meet my original expectations for the placement.
DOLL, J. D, 2010. Program Development and Grant Writing in Occupational Therapy: Making the Connection. Massachussets: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
DUNCAN, E. A. S. 2020. Foundations for practice in Occupational Therapy, 6th edition. Edinburgh: Elsevier.
HART, B. & RISELEY, T. R., 1995. The early catastrophe: The 30 million word gap by age 3. American Educator. 27(1), pp. 4-9.
HECKMANN, J. J., 2011. The Economics of Inequality: The Value of Early Childhood Education. American Educator. 35(1), pp. 31-35.
Thank yous
Funders
The whole team would like to say thank you to Karen Thomson who is the associate dean for international who organised the funding for the internship. Without the funding it would not have been possible for the placement to proceed.
Funding Applicants
A big thank you to Katrina Bannigan, Katie Thomson, Catriona Khamisha & Anita Volkert, for arranging and organising all the different elements of putting this placement together. We know it took a lot of work and without you four this innovative placement experience wouldn't have been made available.
Practice Educators
To our incredibly supportive practice educators Anita Volkert, Fiona Coupar and Sandra Robertson, thank you for the check-ins and supervisions. Your continual support throughout definitely made the challenging elements more manageable.
Think Pacific
The placement of course would never have happened if not for Think Pacific and their internship. Thank you for sharing so much knowledge of Fiji with us and giving us the opportunity to work with such worthwhile organizations.