IT’S ALL ABOUT FAMILIES

​The nofotane women of Tuasivi, Fogapoa and Iva in Savaii embraced their economic empowerment as a form of livelihood to support their families.  This was the general comment from close to 100 nofotane women who attended the 21st livelihood training session held at Fogapoa, at Taulapapa Faasootauloa Patī’s residence
 
The selfless mentality of these nofotane women supported UN Women’s vision for its economic empowerment program of ‘leaving no one behind’, as the participants juggled their responsibilities in the home, with the livelihood training program, all for the sake of their families.
 
We had mothers and their daughters training together to master different handicraft skills and produced quality products.
 
At the same time, their husbands joined to help out their wives with the commercial cooking training.
 
Then we had high chiefs such as Tofilau Taranaki of Iva, Namulauulu Tuipala of Fogapoa and others, sitting around and offered moral support as village leaders, who have been advocating for support for the project.
 
It surely was a family oriented training and we look forward to returning for the first assessment of these women’s businesses, to determine their sustainable self employment for their families.
 
“A nofotane woman will always be a nofotane; the project is not attempting to change this cultural aspect of the FaaSamoa.  The project merely aims to improve the economic empowerment of women and to increase their participation in domestic and community matters, as these are some of the most important contributing factors to achieving gender equality.”  Siliniu Lina Chang, SVSG President.