THREE Solomon Islanders, Collin Benjamin, Sheilla Funubo and Tema Wickham won the ‘Big Ideas’ competition at the International Water and WASH Futures Conference in Brisbane, Australia.
Mr Benjamin and Ms Funubo are from the Solomon Islands National University (SINU), whilst Ms Wickham is from Plan International – Pacific.
The conference was commenced on Monday, ended yesterday.
The trio presented their idea in a video titled ‘Bringing WASH enterprises closer to rural communities in Solomon Islands.’
Their ‘Big Idea’ was that the resources for the sustainable operation and maintenance of community water systems should not only be based at the national and provincial levels but also at the Ward level, suggesting that RWASH officers should have an operation and maintenance programme at this level, work with Ward Development Committees and explore the possibility of supporting small to medium size enterprises (spare parts shops) at the Ward level.
The runner up in the competition was Peni Winimala, from the University of the South Pacific (USP), Fiji.
He was also awarded for his ‘’Big Idea’ titled ‘Breaking the barriers to youth participation on rural water committees.’
The International Water and WASH Futures conference was attended by 400 people from 55 countries and is one of the world’s preeminent water resource management and WASH -water, sanitation and hygiene – conferences.