REHABILITATION: A PATHWAY TO SUCCESSFUL REINTEGRATION

​She came to us shy and hopeless.  According to our teenage girl survivor at the time, “I was rescured and now I know there is hope.” 
 
When the news of Samoa’s Commonwelath Golden girl Feagaiga reached us last night, we were humbled by the extent of her determination to rise up, by her resilience to see hope in her talent, by her successful reintegration.
 
Fegaiga has come a long way from a shy and hopeless survivor to a champion that she is today.  And this is the practicality of the rehabilitation programs at the Campus of Hope, home to Feagaiga for the last five years where she was nurtured to recovery.
 
At the Campus of Hope, Feagaiga was not into singing, dancing, sewing or cooking, but through weightlifiting, she found a way to release her anger and her sense of hopelessness.
 
Under a partnership with the Samoa Weightlifign Federation in 2015, some of our girl survivors of violence took up weightlifiting as part of their rehabilitation program, included in them was Feagaiga.  Thank you Tuaopepe Jerry Wallwork, President of the SWF for your commitment to develop the talents of the girls in weightligting.
 
From the 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games in Apia to the 2016 Oceania Weightlifing Championship in Fiji to the Oceania Training Camp in New Caledonia, Feagaiga’s story of rehabilitation culiminates with the Gold Medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
 
With confidence and determinatioin, the once shy teenage girl is now a Champion in her own right; a survivor living life to the fullest outside of the Campus of Hope.
 
“Congratulations and best wishes Feagaiga.  We are so proud of you.”  Siliniu Lina Chang, SVSG President