Women in Business Development Incorporated is the recipient of four new vehicles courtesy of the Yazaki Kizuna Foundation.

Two new Toyota Land Cruisers, a Toyota Hiace and a Toyota Hilux Double Cab were handed over to the women-focused business organisation on Friday by Funefeai Oliva Vaai, who represented the foundation.

W.I.B.D.I. Executive Director, Naimalaga Adi Tafunai, said the support by the Yazaki Kizuna Foundation will assist farmers and women in business during the lockdown.

“They are supporting us to support the vulnerable people here in Samoa and the big thing is that all our projects now are all COVID-related and we’re trying to help people, not only with the health issues but the most important thing is to make sure that they continue to earn an income regularly,” she said.

“The additional two vehicles is to help support the virtual market which is aimed at supporting these farmers because remember when the COVID happened, it closed down and no tourists came in so many of these farmers don’t have marketing.

“So what we’re doing is trying to do a virtual market and can order things online and the vehicles help us to go out and visit people and kind of bring the products to the people.”

It is not the first time for the foundation to support the W.I.B.D.I. as last year it was the recipient of water tanks at its production facility Nu’u. Early this year the organisation was also given two vehicles.

The donation of the four vehicles on Friday would be a welcome addition to the work of the W.I.B.D.I., which has focused on farmers in rural communities and is currently working with online sales platform SkyEye to utilise the local technology company’s Maua App.

The foundation was set up in 2018 by the Yazaki Corporation, which is the parent company of now defunct Yazaki EDS Samoa Ltd, an automotive parts firm that operated a factory in Apia and closed down in 2017 after 25 years.