The fa'afafine and the fa'atama community continue to face issues such as discriminatory law, discriminatory attitude and health issues, said Samoa Fa'afafine Association (S.F.A) President Alex Su'a.

The association hosted a national forum to inform its members about challenges and ways forward for the betterment of its community. The forum is part of the Fa'afafine Week and was held at the Tanoa Hotel on Wednesday.

According to Mr. Su’a, the theme of the forum was "Gender Equality is Diversity."

He highlighted that the forum brings together representatives to speak on information about issues and solutions that they find relevant to its members.

“The forum is where we talk about issues relating to the fa’afafine and fa’atama community and it is very special because we are now talking about other letters of the rainbow community here in Samoa,” he said.

“Most fa’afafine and fa’atama are very defensive about it and they don’t want to be labeled under the rainbow society but the SFA is all about trying to be inclusive of everyone.

“We are not a discriminatory organisation but we are trying our best to protect and uphold the mandate of the organisation and that is inclusiveness for everyone.

Mr. Su’a then spoke on the issues faced by the community and how SFA is implementing solutions to address it.

“Our community is facing a lot of issues such as discriminatory law, discriminatory attitude towards the community and health issues.

“The health related issues are quite serious so we are addressing it from a social justice or community and social development perspective where we work with people.

“We work with church leaders, village traditional leaders, families and women committees, the hope is to ensure that we are not addressing all these issues on our own but with the help of other people.”

The President said the association is now improving in terms of backlash from people compared to previous forums and it was a good sign that people are accepting the fa'afafine and fa'atama community.

“The first year that we celebrated this forum was in 2015 and we received a lot of backlash from people saying why we are celebrating this week,” he said.

“But if we compare 2015 and the response to now, there’s no response now, people are just accepting us and that is the spirit of SFA.

“If no one talks about us, no one will ever recognise us and that is why we need to speak, we need to talk about us otherwise people will ever know that we exist.”

The association concluded its program by conducting charity work for Goshen Trust and the Samoa Victim Support Group's  Campus of Hope on Wednesday.

“We did a donation of much needed supplies from our members; it was presented through our registered members and club members," he added.

“The funding we received was from Global Interfaith Network which is an international network that S.F.A. is an affiliated member of.”