The project will be operated in Matang Village, one of the biggest and busiest village on Nonouti whereby the local government office is situated therein with the Health Center, schools and big businesses. It?s also involved with tourism activities such as bone fishing games. It has a total population of more than 300 and most are unemployed however, people used to earn income from copra, fish, local products and fabrics production.

Waste Garment on Nonouti Island is becoming a problem. With the influx of second hand clothing to Nonouti Islands through Second hand shops, Garment waste can be seen everywhere, especially on the beach, in the bushes and in our waste dump. With the low cost of second hand clothing people tend to buy more and dispose by throwing away these clothes more often that they are now part of our daily waste, and it becoming a sore sight on the island. At Nonouti Modern Styles garment ? it is also one of the contributing factor to garment waste on Nonouti Island with the off-cuts and waste from their sewing. The amount of waste from its sewing activities is accumulating over the years thus create problems of disposal, there are no dump areas on Nonouti, and these waste will become disposed in the bush areas, on the beach.
As we all know, garment or clothes not only does it waste money and resources, but it can take 200+ years for the materials to decompose. During the decomposition process, textiles generate greenhouse methane gas and leach toxic chemicals and dyes into the groundwater and our soil. They are hard to decompose and they become permanent part of our daily, household waste.
This project wishes to address this problem by managing the garment waste on Nonouti Island before it becomes a real problem affecting our groundwater and our soil, preventing it becoming a sore sight of garment waste everywhere, and before it becomes unmanageable. Nonouti is known for its dry season and water availability challenges, if garment waste is not managed well, our groundwater and our soil will be contaminated.
Nonouti Modern Style, a cooperative of women engaged in sewing would like to apply for funding to address this issue by engaging its members and the whole of island women community in:
? Awareness and best practices of Garment Waste:- to introduce and inform women on Garment Waste, its environmental effect on our groundwater and our soil,
? Equipping Nonouti Mordern Styles to offer services to manage Garment Styles:- procure sewing materials to redesign garment instead of throwing them away ? such as making recyle clothes into pillows, redesign existing dresses into Mauri Wear, thus prolonging the use of garments, and prevent and manage garment waste,
? Training Basic Sewing to Women of Nonouti:- introducing basic sewing to women on Nonouti so that they are able to fix basic wear and tear, instead of buying new clothes, and throwing away old cloths, thus contributing to managing garment waste.