I served in the United Stated Peace Corps in Fiji from August 2015 until September 2017. I was placed as a Youth Empowerment Volunteer where my primary job was to provide health education to high school students. PCVs also have the option to conduct a community needs assessment in the community which they live. The community needs assessment was then used to received grant funds from the USAID to conduct a project. The village that I was residing in, Vunikura, was a village with 30 houses, and only half of those homes had flush toilets. Based on need and the community’s desire, they decided to finish the flush toilets in the village. My secondary job was to serve as a project manager for that undertaking. Ultimately though, the most important job, to me, was to empower the women of Vunikura. With such strict gender roles in Fiji, women encountered domestic and sexual violence often. I worked with the women there to share knowledge on what constitutes consent, how abuse (physical/emotional) may show up in relationships, and provided them resources with social service agencies who provided care to survivors. For more about my experiences in Fiji, check out my blog!
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