Three representatives from Samoa will attend the Young Pacific Leaders Small Grants Program conference held in New Zealand and will leave for Auckland this Saturday for the two-day conference.

Anasis Saipele, Mina Seumanu and Atitoafaiga Tau are the young women who make up the Samoa delegation to the Young Pacific Leaders conference from 7–8 November.

They are all from a women in sports service organisation called Apelu Sports and will represent the sport sector at this conference.

The conference in Auckland is funded by the United States Department of State, U.S. Consulate Auckland, the U.S. Embassy in Wellington and Cultural Vistas. It will bring together over 120 delegates from 42 different countries.

The last conference was held in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 2020, which they could not attend in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic and participated virtually. However, with travel restrictions lifted this time around, they decided to travel to attend the conference in person. 

The young women shared that from their last meet, which was held virtually, they learnt of the four pillars the Young Pacific Leaders conference is based on. Their organisation has strong ties to the first three pillars, due to the similarities to their already existing work activity. These four pillars are education, social development, leadership and climate change. 

A lot of their work is based on an out of school setting, involving young youths who have either dropped out of school or have not received good quality education on family life education. In particular, the proposed program that addresses sexual reproductive health and the increasing number of teenage pregnancies and violence against women and girls in Samoa. They saw that if they were not in school, they would be involved with their local sports club and this is where they intercept them for FLE training, GBV workshops and things alike, making sure that they would at least receive some basic knowledge in order to make better decisions in life for themselves.

Ms. Atitoafaiga, who is one of the girls who attended the conference, said she wanted to help inform people about advancing gender justice through sports.

“As an athlete over the years I have been able to observe the different levels of sportsmanship going on and from this I hope to implement social and behavioural changes,” she said. 

"By creating and improving on sportsmanship it will eventually lift the standards of not only the youth and individuals involved in sport through this program but also the standard of community life as we know it today.” 

Many other participants who will be convening in Auckland for the conference also come from different walks of life with the young ladies hoping to engage and interact with them in order to inform and improve their skills. 

They work a lot around advancing gender justice and this conference is one of the ways and avenues in which these representatives will be advocating and creating awareness around eliminating Gender Based Violence (G.B.V.) within our local communities and ensuring no one is left behind.