BY MAVIS NSIHIMURA PODOKOLO

HONIARA Central Market (HCM) management yesterday conveyed their appreciation to vendors who comply with the new time laws of the market.

Mr Jimson Riunga said having them comply with the imposed by-laws of the council with regards to the closing time is a fine achievement as well as improvement for the market division and the country.

“Hence we would like to convey our appreciation to all vendors for compliance to this imposed by law.

“This indicates effective team work and respect for each other from vendors, consumers, general public and the market management.”

He adds, since after the closing time was introduced there hasn’t been any disorderly act towards the market reported to the management.

“Which is good and I call on the general public to maintain this kind of positive attitudes practiced within the market premises,” said Riunga.

BY ALFRED PAGEPITU

GIZO

VEHICLE owners in Gizo have questioned both provincial and national government over what they perceive as deliberate ignorance to the bad road conditions of the TC and Jah-mountain suburbs.

A Mr Dennis yesterday said the authorities have overlooked the deteriorating roads and “we have called on the responsible authorities to stop doing corrupt practices and improve the road status immediately.

“These roads fixed then it would be worthwhile for vehicle owners comply by paying up necessary fees.”

He explained that Gizo Town has been without proper road access especially to its surrounding suburbs for many years.

He added that the poor roads is taking its toll on their businesses, with most of their earnings going towards repairs.

He said vehicle owners understand the Act and rule of law.

Dennis calls on authorities to take into consideration their call.

Premier Wayne Maepioh said his government is aware of the town’s road conditions, and are working on improving the roads soon.

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

Auki

PREPARATION is underway for the application of a MOU between MEHRD and MHMS on health environment for schools in the country.

In light of that, teachers from schools in the central region of Malaita will end a weeklong training today as they will go back and empower the schools with the knowledge.

National Health Promoting Schools Coordinator, Ms Fiona Laeta said the training is purposely to equip teachers with knowledge as they’ll become vocal persons to lead the health programme in their schools.

“So after the teachers will return from the training, the process is we expect them to set-up each health committees in their respective schools.

“The school committees will responsible to identify health pressing issues in their respective schools and develop action plan to work on them.

“The schools’ action plans will link with the provincial health committee as well as the provincial health promotions to look at issues under the action plan.

“From there they will set-up monitoring tools for each individual school and come up with plans to visits the schools after every six months to monitor the progress of the action plans,” she said.

Laeta said this is the process and if schools complete priority areas under their action plans they will move to other areas of health issues under the action.

She said in terms of resource, focus is not on donors, “we must look within our means on areas like parent’s contributions, school grants, wider community support, support from provinces and etc”.

Laeta said this will however come into play one of the main component of the health education programme which looks at community link.

She said the main idea behind the programme is to ensure healthy school environment for students and teachers.

“Within school environment it has students, teachers, classrooms and other areas that were very important to influence their health in a positive way.

“By doing that the environment must be healthy so that the students are healthy in their intake of knowledge,” Laeta said.

BY ALFRED PAGEPITU

GIZO

TAXI drivers and those who provide transport have called on responsible authorities to improve and develop the roads in Gizo, Western province.

A number of transport owners who provide services told Island Sun Gizo yesterday, the issue of improving road access in Gizo is frustrating and all are concerned about responsible authorities not working on a plan to improve roads.

They expressed their concern over the situation of road accesses within Gizo town not being properly improved.

“We expect responsible authorities to look seriously about the road condition currently affecting the people and we are not encouraging contractors who doing money making in Gizo.

“There are a lot of companies have quality machines that we expect to provide outstanding road works in Gizo but still nothing have improved.”

They explained that Western provincial government (MPG) have discussed this road issue during the Sine Die motion recently – that particular road work maintenance and construction is a very expensive exercise that involves millions of dollars.

A spokesman Andrew Koke said people do not understand why all the road works in Gizo is not fully meeting the right criteria and standard of what people expect.

He said people appeal and call on the government both provincial and national to look very seriously on this issue.

BY LORETTA BRIGIDIA MANELE

ON opposite ends of Central Market’s parking area are bright red stalls neatly lined and filled with clothes but most especially colorful dresses that sway from side to side.

Already popular with women in the capital, these dresses have been are worn for church services, work and on special occasions.

Yesterday Island Sun caught up Ms Ellen Tamirara from Auki who like other women at the stalls are involved in the handmade dress business.

The first thing she stated was that the business has been a good source of income for her family which included her sisters and nieces all part of their circle of the sewing and selling components which result in the number of pretty dresses that hover each other neatly hanging at their stall.

Ms Tamirara expressed that some of them sew dresses and others sell them at the stall.

The task is not easy as it takes up to several hours just to sew up to 20-30 dresses.

The number of dresses sewed also depends on the number of materials purchased.

“If we have a lot of material then we will sew more dresses,” said Ms Tamirara.

They also have customers who place orders for desires dresses as well as those who bring in their measurements for the type of dress they fancy.

“This has been a daily job for all of us. Every day we sew dresses and we find this as a good way of helping us to earn an income”, said Ms Tamirara.

She mentioned that if sales are good they can earn up to $2,000 to $3,000 in a day.

During festive seasons like Christmas the above figure is much less compares to what they earn which can be up to $10,000 in one day.

Money earned is then used to purchase sewing machines, clothing materials and also helps them to cover all of their household needs.

While many of us may take a break from work during public holidays, these days are normal working days for these ladies who are busy sorting out materials, cutting and sewing dresses to sell when normal business days resume.

Ms Tamirara added that what she sees from this business is that it is different from a paid job because for them money is earned daily whereas for those with paid jobs it takes more than a week to get paid.

These hardworking ladies learned to sew dresses on their own and began selling their dresses in 2008.

Today, they are still at it.