recent projects

Transparency International Vanuatu (TIV) have undertaken the following recent projects on good governance and combating corruption:

Civic Education Booklets for Year 7 and 8 Students – funded by the European Union Non State Actors Programme

In 2004, TIV produced a civics curriculum for year 7 and 8 students under a project funded by the EU.  The Civics Curriculum was produced in French and then English.  It includes chapters on:

 

Teacher Training – funded by the Canada Fund

In May and August 2004, Jo Dorras from Vanuatu’s Wan Smolbag Theatre devised and conducted three workshops with teacher trainees.  The workshop program was aimed at teacher trainees/students and aimed to generate an interest in Civic Education and gender discrimination and create an awareness of the need for active citizenship.

A Teacher Trainee booklet was designed by Jo Dorras and used as the framework for the workshops.  The finalized booklet was then translated from English into French.

There were two types of workshop conducted:

i)                    Gender issues workshop: Two sessions were held on gender issues and involved pre-testing the new interactive gender activities developed for use with trainee teachers in the booklet developed by Wan Smolbag.

ii)                  Governance Workshop: The intention in this workshop was to cover some of the major sections of the booklet and to see if the teacher trainees responded to the participatory techniques used in the workshop booklet.

Bislama Civics Book – funded by the Canada Fund

Using the Civics Books developed for Year 7 and 8, a book on civics was adapted and translated into Bislama for the general public.  The book is titled: ‘Vanuatu: Raet mo Diuti blong mi hemi Laef blong mi.’  The Bislama book covers the same chapters as the Curriculum, but without the activities and with a few other additions.  5000 copies of this booklet have been printed and will be used in TIV’s awareness raising activities and workshops.  50 copies were given to chief Joseph Dick to be used in a chiefs conference in Tongoa Island.  The response to the booklets so far has been extremely positive.

Tanna Workshop – funded by the British High Commission

In March 2005, TIV carried out a three-day workshop on Civic Education on the island of Tanna.  18 participants attended the workshop including those from the Area Council, civil servants as well as police and Provincial Government Representatives.

The workshop topics were based on the chapters in the new Bislama Civic Education book, as well as a section on values.  All the participants were really enthusiastic to learn about their role as citizens and to learn about how their country is run.  They recognized that this knowledge should have been communicated to them at the time of Independence.  Having completed the workshop, the participants commented that they now had a better understanding of the rule of law and what corruption is about.

TIV also conducted two community awareness meetings with other citizens in Tanna which generated a lot of interest and questions about civics, corruption and politics.