Carina was recently awarded a scholarship along with 6 fellow Federation University MBA students to visit Fiji,experience the culture and deliver lectures to fellow MBA students who attend the University of South Pacific and Fiji National University.  Five students were from Gippsland and 1 from Ballarat.   The presentations were based on three areas circular economy,  social enterprise and ethical governance all in relation to the United Nations development goals.    Fresh water, clean air and healthy food are part of the United Nation development goals however climate change is preventing this from happening.  Currently there are 17 goals altogether and the UN hope to achieve these goals by 2030. 
The subject that Carina studied was called business, society and planet which is all about sustainability.    Sustainability of a business so that it thrives and succeeds, looking after your people, looking after your finances, looking after your customers.   How to live in the society so that it is equitable and so that everyone in the society can grow.  How to take care of and look after the planet for future generations.   One of the topics presented to the Fijian students was about Circular Economy which is designed to minimise waste, recycle and reuse items again rather than discarding and creating waste.   This style moves in a circle motion and means that there is no need to dig up further resources to use, one area that this is being used is in using concrete for road base.   There is also investigations going into micro recycling where they can reuse and create new components.    Regenerate natural systems - looking at old mine sites how they can be turned back into a beautiful environment.   Carina presented on Social Enterprise which is a business that is set up to do good in the world, good for the environment, good for people or/and good for communities.  An example of a social enterprise is the company Who gives a Crap started by a group in Melbourne and  sell recycled toilet paper, tissues and paper towels, this enterprise started with crowd fundraising where one of the members sat on the toilet for 50 hours until they raised enough funds to make their first shipment of toilet paper.  This business donate 50% of their profits to help other people who do not have good sanitation , to date they have donated 2.5 million dollars.    Noweyung is one of our local social enterprise groups giving quality work for people with disabilities.  Women against waste is another local social enterprise that is working to create less waste, stopping clothes and other waste going to landfill.   Ethical Governance was another topic discussed in relation to the Royal Commission into banking and looks at what decisions that a board makes that is good for the environment. the community and the people.   A social enterprise in northern
Fiji where a group of Fijian Indian women who have been taught how to run a business by keeping bees and making and selling honey with the money that they earn they are investing it in their families.    One area is planting Mangroves and the goal is to plant 70,000 in the next year, the mangroves grow quickly  they draw down CO2 and protect the land from erosion and providing a safe haven for young fish.   The waste system in Fiji is underdeveloped but they are trying to sort it out, everywhere we went there was rubbish.  The currently burn plastic and leave it on the side of the road.  However, all Fijians believe in climate change as they have lost  50 metres of their land to the ocean due to the sea rising.   Land is held tribally in Fiji so moving to another location is not possible as it belongs to another tribe.    When we look at the sustainable development goals and we look at what we do in Rotary we can see that we are fulfilling these goals, access to clean water - the Skyhydrant program is helping to answer this goal,  Days for girls is giving education to girls who would not normally go to school.  There are so many things that we can do to make the world a better place.  Robyn Counihan thanked Carina for her very informative talk and for her drive and enthusiam in climate change and making a better environment.  Robyn also informed us that Carina has another speaking engagement in St Kilda on the weekend.