MEMBERS of the community will now be involved in the running of the Early Childhood Education Learning Centres in their respective areas.
The move, spearheaded by Save the Children Fiji is known as the Vuli Taumada Sishak Project and will be introduced in villages.
Project manager Barbara Ratabacaca said they would take the ECE program to village heads and local community leaders in a bid to stress to people the importance of early childhood learning.
"Since the program is meant to be given back to the responsibility of the community after a period of time, Save the Children Fiji is therefore finding this sort of workshops convenient so that community stakeholders can get a glimpse of how they can attain assistance from government departments in maintaining a sustainable ECE centre," Ms Ratabacaca said.
"SCF is also trying to work with these committees in ensuring that the ECE centres are maintained in a sustainable way to see that it is fully functional when it goes back to the community.
"We have come up with income-generating projects that can be undertaken by the communities for the purpose of keeping these ECE centres functional."
Ms Ratabacaca said in order to achieve this, SC Fiji had identified income-generating projects according to what communities had around them which could be tapped to generate income for sustaining the ECE centres.
"For instance Nabukadogo Village in the district of Macuata has a rich abundant of marine reserve where we have identified seaweed farming as a project that villagers in the area could take part in to support their ECE centres.
"Likewise we are trying to do the same for the rest of the ECE centres and ensure that communities work together to take full responsibility of their ECE centres," she said.