BY JOY OFASIA
AMONG youths in Honiara town who participated in a Flour Processing and cookery training workshop was young Sandy Mahe.
Sandy Mahe comes from the Makira Province and is currently studying at the Solomon Islands National University.
Sandy attended the Flour Processing and cookery training workshop this week held for youths in Honiara hosted by the Solomon Islands Development Agency which aims to build a generation of skilled men and women.
Growing up in Makira province known as the banana province for its variety of banana fruits, she knew that the training will definitely help her with new skills and knowledge she will learn from this very important training.
Speaking to the Solomon Women’s newspaper in an interview, Sandy explained that back in her village there are so many bananas that people have grown there for consumption and at the same time also for income.
“The people in my village would travel far distances with very huge bags of bananas which are also very heavy to carry to sell at our main market,” she explained.
“After marketing the bananas they only earn around the amount of only $50 to take back home which to me is very hard working to earn a small amount of money such as that,” she said.
“Coming to this training, opened my eyes to see the importance of flour processing to turn our very own local products into your own flour to use at home,” she explained.
Sandy said that the process of making flours at home from our local products is very easy and so she now has a plan to go back to teach people in her village to process their own flour from bananas.
She added that producing flour banana products will be very interesting and people especially women in her village would be very happy to be able to know how to make their own flours to use for their baking at home.
“To make it more interesting, you don’t have to use machines but can process flour using our very own local tools,” she added.
“I am grateful for this opportunity to be able to attend this very important training which will help not only me but also my family and community the ideas to be self-employed, be creative and has the idea for multiple of income generation opportunities for future,” Sandy explained.
Sandy thanked SIDA for carrying out the workshop for youths like her to see another way forward to a bright future through the skills learned and is looking forward to taking her plans into action when she returns to her village in Makira Province.
