The Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation continues to work on advancing Fijians from their social welfare programmes.

Minister Lynda Tabuya says this is through the Welfare Graduation Programme.

She says this assists social welfare recipients to be self-sustained.

“They are usually assessed on a case by case basis and there may come a time when they are able to sustain themselves so that they are winged out of the programme … and that is the responsibility of the Ministry to help them to graduate from the social welfare programme so that they can be able to sustain themselves.”

The Ministry says their social welfare programmes are not intended to be a lifelong assistance, and recipients are expected to graduate from it.

It says this is one of their focus to graduate recipients from welfare to workfare, in which they learn new skills to secure employment or start a business.

The welfare graduation programme is run in collaboration with the National Centre for Small and Micro-Enterprises Development.