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FRIEND

Exeter research team finds an akin connexion in FRIEND to further their civil society for engaged research in Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Conny Guell, Nigel Unwin and Emily Haynes have cultivated a strong partnership with Fiji-based Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises & Development (FRIEND), a community development NGO. All begun in 2017, when the researchers embarked on their Community Food and Health project as part of their work in SIDS. FRIEND was involved in their methods development work in Fiji, providing evidence based on their knowledge and experience of running community food production initiatives. Since then, their collaboration with FRIEND and its Director, Sashi Kiran, has evolved substantially. FRIEND was a partner in the design and delivery of backyard gardening interventions on the ICoFaN project and is now a full co-investigator on their four-year NIHR-funded Global Community Food and Health project.

Guell, Unwin and Haynes have greatly benefitted from FRIEND’s expertise, knowledge, and relationships with local communities. With FRIEND, they co-developed and applied a context-relevant toolkit for evaluating the impacts of community food production in Fiji. The learning, through working with FRIEND, informed the design of the Global Community Food and Health project, in which they are jointly investigating the potential for improving household diet, nutrition, and food security, and reducing the burden of nutrition related diseases by promoting increased community-based food production based on agroecological principles. Now FRIEND plays an integral part in that global programme of research, as co-lead on key work packages, including on community engagement and intervention co-design, and on engagement with local and national policy makers.