Catalog

	Table of Contents
p. 6 of 6 BACK | NEXT Introduction Is Hardship Really a Problem in the FSM? What is Hardship? Who is Facing Hardship? What Causes Hardship? What Can be Done?

Priorities of the People: Hardship in the Federated States of Micronesia

---

What Can Be Done?

After listening to the stories of the poor and understanding the nature and causes of hardship, what can be done to address it? Working together with those facing hardship to plan, prioritize, and implement solutions has a good chance of leading to successful, lasting initiatives. But before planning such initiatives, it is important to understand the communities’ view of current assistance programs, how they currently cope with hardship, and most importantly, their priorities and suggestions for future action.

Current Initiatives to Address Hardship

Community fundraising and individual assistance to needy people are the most common initiatives to address hardship identified during the assessment. Spiritual advice (mainly in Chuuk), and community clean-up activities and youth counseling (mainly in Yap and Pohnpei) were other community initiatives mentioned.

Most of the people consulted during the assessment were unaware of any previous or current poverty-reduction initiatives implemented either by government, nongovernment, or donor organizations. However, a few people were aware of the following projects:

• Construction of a community dispensary, kindergarten school, and elementary school building
• Building community awareness of teen pregnancy, nutrition, health, hygiene, and immunization
• Water supply projects.

Coping Strategies

Communities have evolved their own strategies to cope with hardship, such as working as a community and utilizing family networks. Supporting these strategies and community capacity building will help communities be stronger partners to reduce hardship.

To help them cope during crises, such as a death in the family or severe lack of money, most communities surveyed ranked their immediate families and relatives, church, local organizations, and municipal councils as most important. They also mentioned their chiefs, state legislature, government departments, and congress as important. People said their immediate families were the first to provide food, money, or shelter, while churches provided spiritual support. Women’s and youth groups, including organizations like the Red Cross, provide assistance in kind and moral support particularly during natural disasters. Municipal councils were said to organize community activities, for example, to support families that need extra assistance in tending their gardens or fixing the water supply system. Government departments were said to be one of the first to respond during natural disasters.

Most people, particularly in Chuuk and Yap, said their family, church, and relatives are the only institutions that they can influence in terms of decision making, while communities consulted in Pohnpei said they have some influence on the decisions made by local, state, and national institutions.

People’s Priorities

An unfinished school building in Chuuk being used as a primary school

1. Improve access to income generating opportunities. This includes more scholarships and skills training to improve people’s chances of finding jobs or other ways to earn cash, particularly for those who have dropped out of school, as well as improved market access for people in the rural and outer island areas.
2. Improve basic services. Better transport is needed to connect the outer islands to state and overseas capitals so people can sell local produce, fish, and handicrafts. Better access to higher education, health, power supply, and water is also needed.
3. Improve access to information. Information is needed on family planning, good parenting, and planning skills. Increasingly, people are recognizing the value of planning their families to be able to provide for their children’s needs. Learning proper parenting skills was also increasingly valued to effectively deal with modernization of their traditional societies (e.g., alcohol and drug abuse) and to develop children’s potential to get an education and good job.
4. Skills training and recreation center. Youth drop-outs and women entering the work force after having children need skills training to find a job, make crafts, or start a small business.
5. Measures to stop alcohol and drug abuse. Women’s groups throughout the country said alcohol and drug abuse causes laziness or lack of personal motivation, misuse of household budgets away from the family’s basic needs (e.g., food, education) to alcohol or drugs, and conflict among couples.
6. Enforcement of child support law. This was a particular priority identified in Chuuk where an increasing number of single women were seen to be facing hardship while trying to provide for the needs of their children without financial support from the fathers.

Capacity Building Needs

The communities consulted identified the following five major categories of skills, ranked according to importance, needed to actively participate in future development initiatives.

1. How to make water safe for drinking
2. Home economics and household improvement (e.g., cooking, sewing, nutrition information and budgeting)
3. Income generation (e.g., business management, carpentry, auto-mechanics, animal husbandry)
4. Food security (e.g., gardening, fishing techniques)
5. Organizational planning and management, including communication and leadership techniques.

Back What Causes Hardship?	Priorities of the People: Hardship in the Federated States of Micronesia