Catanasiga: Social welfare schemes was not enough
THERE needs to be better monitoring of social welfare programs and its impact on the vulnerable.
This, according to Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS) executive director Vani Catanasiga.
While appearing as a guest on The Lens @177, a The Fiji Times production, Ms Catanasiga said she had been in forums where participants shared that while the social welfare schemes were helpful, it was not enough.
“Really that’s a dilemma that we often grapple with in this area of work, is how much do we give to help support?” she said.
“For me personally and FCOSS, I guess in that sense, we’d like to see people being given that concerted support to get them from here, from poverty out of poverty and we don’t yet see that.
“I think we need to rethink how we are providing this support, particularly for people who live with disabilities because of the barriers they face particularly in something we talk about, physical access, even in public spaces in Fiji.
“It’s not even at the 50 per cent level so if we’ve already provided that, then we’d say perhaps it’s working but at this point, I don’t think so.”
She said some of the recipients who were living with disabilities could not go out and access basic services for themselves.
“They can’t go to the shops themselves to buy, they rely very much on their carers to use that and we’ve encountered cases where the beneficiaries are immobile and we wonder where the payments have been used because we don’t see it.
“When you look at the conditions in which the person with disabilities is in, you can draw a few conclusions so that sort of monitoring needs to be better.
“Perhaps we need to think of providing sup- port for carers as well.”