Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT)

A brief outline about Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT)

Outlined by Longden Manedika, Executive Director, SIDT; Feb 11th 2015.

Vision

SIDT’s vision for the future of the Solomon Islands:

Every village has a good standard of living, with sustainable use of resources, good access to services and good leaders who ensure that villagers work together for the good of their community. Our vision is that every Solomon Islanders is healthy, happy and self-reliant.

Mission

SIDT’s Mission is to improve the quality of village living in the Solomon Islands by:

1. Designing and implementing projects that build capacity in existing village governance structures and contribute to improving the quality of village life in all areas affecting the people for the Solomon Islands.
2. Collecting, creating and sharing multi-media information resources that are useful and appropriate for villages, and contributing to the research and analysis of issues affecting the people of the Solomon Islands.
3. Networking and advocacy activities that foster mutual understanding and communication between Solomon Island villagers and the institutions, agencies and individuals who can help them make positive changes to the quality of village life.

Core Values:

Participation and community connectivity

SIDT believes that good development and positive change involves the participation of everyone in the community regardless of gender, religion, age, education level, or physical or mental disability.

Empowerment and Self-Reliance

SIDT believes that building on existing strengths in communities encourages ownership of development and ensures future sustainability. “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, you feed him for life”.

Learning Organisation

SIDT is committed to building on past experience by performing regular debriefs and evaluation of our work, and also learning from the government, Non-government organizations, community Based Organizations(CBO), stakeholders (current and future) to continuously improve the way we work towards achieving our vision.

Teamwork, Trust and Honesty

SIDT believes that the best results are obtained when we work with our donors, partners, stakeholders and villagers honestly and with mutual understanding and respect. We believe that the same principle applies within our organization, and strive to promote a supportive environment for all the staff of SIDT to work together to achieve our mission.

The Challenges SIDT is Faced With.

Ways Forward to address financial sustainability issues includes:

1. Improving SIDT infrastructure and internal systems
   • Construction of a new Office Complex
   • Renovation of the Old Office Complex
     1. NB/ The importance of these infrastructure is that it will provide or support for the information sharing hub on community development issues relating indigenous priorities, to Government and other international stakeholders facilitating community development initiatives in the Solomon Islands.
2. Strengthening links with Solomon Islands Government:
   • Ongoing communication with Government is seen as a healthy action to venture into, yet on an adversarial mode.
3. Building Capacity of Village Committees:
   • This is where SIDT plays important roles to support village people in Solomon Islands. Most of our people (85%) are village based. Around 80% of the land is under their custody (customary tenure), however they are back in time as far as being informed is concerned. There are around 5,000 villages in the Solomon Islands, almost all of them have a committee within to govern and administer the affairs of a particular village. The traditional governance system (Identity) is respected yet currently being threatened from other influences. A compromise between the old and the new system of governance is needed for a safe and stable Solomon Islands. Capacity building for villages involves training programs, village forums and advocacy, that is expected to be demonstrated by recipients of SIDT’s information sharing work throughout the Country - S.Is.
4. Partnership:
   • SIDT is committed to come to partnerships with other partners that will be of great support to the Goal, Vision and Mission of SIDT.

The organization has been recognized internationally as playing both a supportive and leading role at the village level throughout the Solomon Islands.

The organization is central to informing the people of the various issues that affect their livelihoods and daily lives.

SIDT provides counselling and care, particularly at the village level, on HIV and Aids as well as conflict resolution, mediation, good governance, disaster reduction and climate change.

The qualified and experienced staff of SIDT face huge challenges in getting their messages across to village level audiences and need financial support both from the Solomon Islands Government but, especially, from international donors willing and able to assist the organization.

SIDT's work is vitally important in the context of the Solomon Islands that suffered from several years of internal, tribal conflict, between 1998 and 2003 and efforts to promote reconciliation and peace amongst the communities are fundamentally important.

Currently, due to a lack of adequate funds and resources, the organization is struggling, at best; to maintain its country wide assistance and urgent donor assistance is needed.

With additional funding, the organization will be better able to support the Solomon Islands development objectives and their own programs will become far more meaningful and targeted.

Currently, SIDT needs money to renovate a derelict wooden building in Honiara where it can better operate from, but longer term much more money is needed to construct a purpose built headquarters for the organization.

YOU CAN AID THE SIDT BY MAKING YOUR DONATIONS TO THE SIDT's BANK ACCOUNT WHICH IS: