FPCD views the Healthy Island Approach as the most suitable road to reaching a healthy and happy community through a Community Action and Participation (CAP) process.

It has been identified that over the next three years, FPCD would like to pilot the CAP process in a smaller number of member communities to develop a more holistic approach to community development work. This would be an integrated effort involving health, food security, income generation, community development.

It is under this arrangement, that FPCD community development staff are working with people living in marginalized areas of the city and in villages along the Motuan coast to develop the necessary skills and knowledge needed to improve their communities.

There are two projects that FPCD health officers are currently involved in. The first, funded by the Australian Foundation for Asia Pacific (AFAP) is a Disaster Preparedness project and involves people of the Motuan Village Boera. The second, funded by New Zealand Aid and carried out in partnership with the Foundations for People of the South Pacific in Fiji, is a Masculinity, Mental Health and Violence (MMHV) project.

Disaster Preparedness Project:

Renowned as a disaster prone area, the Motuan village of Boera is the setting for this project. Under the one-year life of the project, FPCD's disaster officers aim to equip these villagers with the necessary information and skills needed for monitoring, development, planning emergency operations and damage assessment, in the event that disaster, be it a tidal wave or drought, affects the area.

Masculinity Mental Health and Violence Project:

The Masculinity, Mental Health and Violence Project (MMHV) came about through concerns raised by Pacific Island Communities over the growing number of Out-of School and unemployed youths, the severe shortage of employment opportunities and the related increase of mental health problems, violence and crime.

Under the project, more than 300 participants, mostly men, from five settlement communities in NCD, (June Valley, Morata Two, Two Mile Hill, Joyce Bay and Kaugere) have been identified and are working with FPCD staff to find ways in which they can combat the growing trend wherein which young men use violence to deal with depression and assert their masculine power.

As the project nears its completion, project staff are satisfied that project objectives have been met. That boys and young men are aware of mental health issues that affect their lives, and are seeking and receiving information and assistance from support structures, rather than resorting to violence as an outlet; that communities are offering a supportive environment for boys and young men with mental health problems and that NGO's, governments and regional organizations are working together to develop effective support services for at-risk boys and young men.

FPCD works with young men and women who are unemployed and provides avenues for them to make a living for themselves through small business projects instead of turning to crime and other illegal activities.

The MMHV Project targets youths who are rejected by the community