308
D. H. M. Aquino et al.
Even with the communal practice of rebuilding houses in the village, it still entails
substantive costs to feed the village men and women partaking in the solesolevaki.
Those who wanted to rebuild or repair their bures needed to do so out of their
own funds (G1). Villagers who were eligible for the Help for Homes grant claimed
their e-cards and constructed contemporary houses to live in while saving money to
repair or rebuild their bures (G1). Those who did so can be seen spending the day
in their damaged bures and then moving to the contemporary houses to sleep in at
night.
16.7 Prospects
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015) recognises the worth of
indigenous knowledge in addressing the challenge of risk reduction and developing
resilience. In the absence of formal means to develop resilience, indigenous societies
have thrived and developed resilience by learning through experience, mostly in a
trial and error method. The bure design, conceived by indigenous Fijians, is a living
design that had evolved with the various environmental and socio-cultural factors
that the community had been exposed to. This Cyclone Winston experience could be
used to enrich the bure-building practice towards resilience, by deriving the lessons
learnt, and should not be seen as a reason to abandon tradition.
16.7.1 Recommendations
In view of the policy-related challenges in rebuilding the bure in the aftermath of a
disaster, there is a need to reconcile the various notions of resilience. There need not
be only one absolute interpretation of what resilience means. UNISDR (2015) defines
resilience as “the ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to
resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of
a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and
restoration of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management.”
Taking off from this, a resilient house could be something that is sturdy and could
resist the most intense of winds, if we are to focus on the first part of the definition,
or it could also be a house that could easily adapt to changes in the environmental
condition, or one that might be feeble but is quick and easy to reconstruct in the
aftermath of a disaster.
Ultimately, there is a need to dispel the notion that modern is necessarily better.
In a similar sense that contemporary housing had advanced through technological
breakthroughs, so can traditional ones. After all, the Sendai Framework espouses
the integration of scientific and traditional practices in formulating solutions towards
resilience (UNISDR 2015).
D. H. M. Aquino et al.
Even with the communal practice of rebuilding houses in the village, it still entails
substantive costs to feed the village men and women partaking in the solesolevaki.
Those who wanted to rebuild or repair their bures needed to do so out of their
own funds (G1). Villagers who were eligible for the Help for Homes grant claimed
their e-cards and constructed contemporary houses to live in while saving money to
repair or rebuild their bures (G1). Those who did so can be seen spending the day
in their damaged bures and then moving to the contemporary houses to sleep in at
night.
16.7 Prospects
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015) recognises the worth of
indigenous knowledge in addressing the challenge of risk reduction and developing
resilience. In the absence of formal means to develop resilience, indigenous societies
have thrived and developed resilience by learning through experience, mostly in a
trial and error method. The bure design, conceived by indigenous Fijians, is a living
design that had evolved with the various environmental and socio-cultural factors
that the community had been exposed to. This Cyclone Winston experience could be
used to enrich the bure-building practice towards resilience, by deriving the lessons
learnt, and should not be seen as a reason to abandon tradition.
16.7.1 Recommendations
In view of the policy-related challenges in rebuilding the bure in the aftermath of a
disaster, there is a need to reconcile the various notions of resilience. There need not
be only one absolute interpretation of what resilience means. UNISDR (2015) defines
resilience as “the ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to
resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of
a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and
restoration of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management.”
Taking off from this, a resilient house could be something that is sturdy and could
resist the most intense of winds, if we are to focus on the first part of the definition,
or it could also be a house that could easily adapt to changes in the environmental
condition, or one that might be feeble but is quick and easy to reconstruct in the
aftermath of a disaster.
Ultimately, there is a need to dispel the notion that modern is necessarily better.
In a similar sense that contemporary housing had advanced through technological
breakthroughs, so can traditional ones. After all, the Sendai Framework espouses
the integration of scientific and traditional practices in formulating solutions towards
resilience (UNISDR 2015).