YOUTH SHARING AND NETWORKING

​It was a night of sharing and networking as the SVSG Juniors, the youth group of Samoa Victim Support Group, reached out to the youth from St Andrew Catholic Parish of Faleula. 
 
The event was in response to a request from a youth member of the Parish for the SVSG Junior to raise awareness with the St Andrew Catholic youth, on the support they can provide towards abused children, women as well as our community in need.  Included in the SVSG Juniors were youths from the Samoa National Orchestra of the Ministry of Education, and the New Methodist Church of Vaitele.
 
Under the leadership of Deacon Faafetai Lalotoa, the St Andrew Youth welcomed the visiting SVSG youth with a traditional ava ceremony, which sets the tone of the open dialogue that followed.
 
First there were powerful testimonies from 2 former residences of the Campus of Hope; one of them was Feagaiga Stowers, Samoa’s weightlifter fairy tale golden girl, the other, an Ambassador of children victims of sexual abuse who has gone public with her story to save another child’s life. 
 
The third and final testimony was from a ‘Man of Change’, a youth popularly known as ‘Mane’ amongst his SVSG family, who shared on the second chance he has been given in life, and as such, vowed to make a difference in someone else’s life, through his story.  It really was a night of sharing, of networking and of empowering youths to stand up for they are the leaders of tomorrow. 
 
To culminate the open sharing, the Sisters of Hope, comprised of the former residences of the Campus of Hope, performed a Thanksgiving Skit as part of their collective testimony, that with God, there is always hope.
 
For the SVSG President, Siliniu Lina Chang, who merely attended to observe and to see if the SVSG Juniors, the succession plan of SVSG’s work, are on the right track with all the preparation to take this work further, she was humbled.  There was obviously a commitment from the individual youths to make a difference; there was an excitement to make a change; and there was a genuine interest to stand together as youths to lend a helping hand.
 
If there was anything that the members of the SVSG Juniors took back with them from this gathering, it was the sincerity of the commitment from the St. Andrew Youth, to work together as ‘youths’ to help our people in need.  Now this is young people taking ownership of their responsibilities to our community in need.