The Women Who Inspire Our Program

 Here is a highlight of two local women who we hope will soon benefit from a micro-finance loan from W-CAP. 

Nia

Nia is a single mother of 8 children, at least 5 are still at home, one has Cerebral Palsy. Nia is in night school at the community college trying to get her associates degree. She has started baking cakes to sell, and has been testing out new recipes. She is very lucky because she owns an oven, most people do not. Thing is she has only one pan, it is really a casserole pan, and it is rusty and old, and the propane to bake and the ingredients needed are very expensive. She is currently wanting to apply for a $100 loan so that she can obtain the needed materials to start her little baking enterprise. More recently she has been learning to drive and you can see her self esteem growing as she is able to do new things and be successful. Nia is a good loving mother, a hard worker, and someone who really deserves a break.

Hena

Hena is from Tonga, is married and has 2 small children, a 2 year old son pictured and a 4 year old daughter who is partially blind. Hena's husband works very hard at odd jobs but is waiting for his immigration papers in order to hopefully become employed full-time. Hena recently saved for 8 months to buy a plane ticket to visit the temple in Apia. When it came time for her wards weekend temple trip, her friend had prepared to take out her endowment but was not able to pay for a ticket. Hena gave her ticket to her friend so she could go instead. What a sacrifice! Hena is kind and generous. Hena has started a little business making 'pankakes' and she sells them 7 for $1. They are like large fried cake-donut balls. She dreams of having a large frying pan so she fry more than 3 balls of dough at a time, and a small propane gas burner just for this purpose. She is also wanting to apply for a micro-loan to grow her little side business so as to better support her family.

South Pacific Business Development

The South Pacific Business Development Foundation (SPB) has been very influential in helping women make major contributions to their communities while supporting their families.  Through their micro-finance program they have helped over 8,137 women with $16.1 million tala since 1999.  W-CAP is just getting off the ground with their micro-finance program and is hoping to model the success of SPB.

Intern Highlight - Denise

Denise Free came to American Samoa from Utah to volunteer with W-CAP while doing research on post-traumatic growth. 



In her own words:

"I am here in American Samoa because they experienced an earthquake and tsunami in September of 2009 and my interest is in Posttraumatic Growth. While most of you have likely heard of Posstraumatic Stress Disorder, many have likely not heard the converse, the study of Posttraumatic Growth. It is really the study of how after some sort of traumatic event, the majority of people likely look back on that event as a turning point of some sort in life, a stimulus for growth in some area of their lives."

To see more details on her research and monumental accomplishment in collecting surveys you can visit her blog.

http://freespirit-insamoa.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-research.html

W-CAP is so grateful to Denise for her dedicated service while she was here in Samoa and the difference she has made to the organization and the people we serve.  Good luck in graduate school!

Fish Farming

 

 

Last month W-CAP had the opportunity to attend a two day training at the Sea Grant office here in American Samoa. Fish farming can be a very good micro-enterprise for the women of our foundation and we were happy to see 6 of them there. We were the largest of any of the groups and certainly the most committed! There were guys from Dept. of Agriculture and varios agencies, a few fishermen, 3 men from LDS Farms in Western Samoa, and misc people from throughout the community. 

 

 

There were experts on marine biology and water quality from Hawaii as well as the local experts from the community college here. The morning sessions of classes were very informative, and the afternoon hands on stuff was tons of fun. We learned all about fish, and at times even had them out of their little pools in our hands figuring out their sex for breeding purposes.

The educators laughed the second afternoon that the W-CAP women really showed commitment - being on time in the mornings, coming back from lunch, and asking questions all day. Go W-CAP!

Nutrition Fair

At the beginning of February the foundation put on a nutrition fair in Amouli. Amouli is at the other side of the island, and is one of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami. The road to get there is not great, and since many people do not have cars, Amouli is not heavily trafficked. Having a health fair out there was a big deal! It was as if the circus had come to town. The school even sent all the middle-schoolers and their teachers for the morning so they could participate.

W-CAP put on three different nutrition puppet shows.

We had a great DJ who really had the kids out dancing up a storm. He talked about the importance of exercise, and how exercise can be fun!

The children got to play games, try different nutritious foods, and talk to the different vendors whose main goal was nutrition education.

There were people from Land Grant who had seedlings and shared gardening info, people from Sea Grant who talked about eating fresh fish in your diet (surprisingly something they do not do a lot of. They eat mostly corned beef and SPAM instead), the Deptartment of Health, WIC, the nutritionists at the hospital, Pizza Hut who brought veggie pizza's and salads, and the gas company who provided burners for us to do cooking demonstrations with. It was all free for the families that attended and we were so happy how many people were able to attend and participate.  A special thanks to all those who made this event possible!

Tsunami Damage

Tula Village on the far east side of the island was the hardest hit. Even though there was no emergency alert system most people were able to escape.

Here are some shots of the Pago Harbor after the 8.3 earthquake hit.