The Navouvula Women’s Club has ventured into commercialising the resources available in their village to earn an income and become economically empowered.
The group is producing pure virgin coconut oil which they were planning to sell in the near future.
According to a member of the group, 67-year-old Kelera Ravutu, the women were taught how to produce oil from coconuts.
She said the women collected the coconuts from around the village.
They follow a strict process of extracting the components needed by using methods that would prevent the oil from being contaminated.
She said this was all done to keep the coconut oil in its purest form.
Ms Ravutu said the process did not take too long as it usually depended on the weather.
She said they were taught of a process where they could work on if the weather was not sunny.
“Because this coconut is all over the place and we can make use of it,” said Ms Ravutu.
“Most of the times you go buy it in town but we didn’t know it’s just easy that we can just make our own and we can start selling it.”
She said the group had just started with the process of making pure virgin coconut oil.
The women placed their products on display for the first time during a financial literacy workshop organised by Women Entrepreneurs Business Council which was held on Tuesday March 22.
Ms Ravutu said there were six women in the group from the village of Vunisinu. She said this was one of the few products they were involved in producing at the moment.
Throughout their years the women from the group have been involved in work such as screen printing, patching, making bedspreads.
Ms Ravutu said they were still earning from the shirts, sulu dresses that they made by selling it in the village.
The group also makes tailor-made school uniforms for the children in the village.
