Partnering for an Organic Samoa

By Vatapuia Maiava 22 May 2016, 12:00AM

Sealed with a donation of $3,000, a new partnership between Samoa Housing Corporation (S.H.C.) and Women in Business Inc (W.I.B.D.I.) has been formed.

The Chief Executive Officer of S.H.C, Matautia Rula Levi visited the W.I.B.D.I. office on Friday to show support and present the cheque personally.

“This is a form of a partnership; we have selected Women in Business as one of our partners,” she said.

“As you may realize we have hosted the association for Development Finance Institution (D.F.I.) for the Asia and Pacific meeting last week and we did sign what we call a Samoa Declaration.

“This declaration includes just a little over 6 resolutions; this is the greening of D.F.I’s core work where we incorporate best practices in good governmental practices in the work that we do.

“We deal with policies, procedures as well as advocating for climate change and how we can assist our people.

“So this is a follow up of that, we have identified W.I.B.D.I and the work that they do for organic farming where they transform lives and create opportunities for our people.

“These opportunities include incorporating traditional and modern practices of income generating activities with the environment in mind so that they can produce organic products.”

Matautia applauded W.I.B.D.I’s wide reach of villages they help.

“I think 183 villages are involved with W.I.B.D.I. and that is a lot of villages within our country,” she said.

“We believe in the work that they do and we believe that the work that they do puts money in our clients so that they can repay their loans.

“So it’s all in a form of good partnerships and helping each other out.”

S.H.C’s assistance will also go towards helping W.I.B.D.I. complete their warehouse which will ultimately help the community in the near future.

“I believe that they are in the process of building a warehouse whereby will help with the manufactured products,” Matautia said.

“These products do add value to the resources that we have and from that warehouse there will be a lot of youth employment, a lot of export products that will be created and so the ripple effect of this assistance will be huge.

 “I encourage other incorporations and ministries to work together with bodies like W.I.B.D.I. because we do believe in sustainability.

“Sustainability is the right word when dealing with climate change resilience so this assistance will go a long way even though it’s only SAT$3,000.

“We are excited about this partnership and we hope it will continue.”

W.I.B.D.I’s Associate Director – Programmes Alberta Vitale expressed gratitude towards the assistance and partnership.

“On behalf of W.I.B.D.I board and staff we would like to thank Samoa Housing for their huge assistance towards our fundraising,” she said. “We had a very successful event on Mother’s Day Monday and we had a huge turn out from people in the wider community so thank you very much.

“We also appreciate this corporation who has come a long way to assist us because this assistance does not stop here, it will go beyond that.

“It will go back to feeding the farmers and everyone that is part of the programme; it will also go to assisting people with paying their loans and anything else that involves Samoa Housing.

“On top of that, the work we are doing here in W.B.D.I. heavily involves a lot of farms around Samoa; we deal with all organic products certified to international standards.

“The warehouse will assist them in producing value added products that will be able to be marketed locally and export markets as well.

“So thank you very much S.H.C. for this assistance.”

By Vatapuia Maiava 22 May 2016, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

Upgrade to Premium

Subscribe to
Samoa Observer Online

Enjoy unlimited access to all our articles on any device + free trial to e-Edition. You can cancel anytime.

>