The Lanulauava Student Association is currently conducting carbon audits of schools in Savai'i as part of its "Future of the green Pacific" project.

Lanulau'ava is a student association at the National University of Samoa (N.U.S.) which was launched in October last year. Its objective is to raise environmental awareness as well as educate, protect and conserve the land, culture, and the ocean.

The Future of the Green Pacific Project started in March and has enabled students to find out more about fauna, moana and measina as well as climate change. 

The Lanulauava Students Association President, Grace Ah Young told the Samoa Observer in a telephone interview on Friday that the project covered six schools in Upolu and six from Savai'i with five girls represent each of the schools.

The next phase of the project is the audit which started on 21 April.

They visited Mataevave College, Tuasivi College, Itu-o-Tane College, Alofi-o-Taoa College and Savai Sisifo College.

This was after the association had conducted its own carbon audit at the N.U.S, where according to Ms. Ah Young, she saw a big need to implement carbon audits within academic institutions, especially with those in the rural areas and in Savai'i.

She, however, saw that these schools did not have enough resources that they needed.

Ms. Ah Young said that if they can somehow save money from the electricity usage that is being wasted, then that could go into the textbooks needed for the schools.

According to her, they had received positive feedback from the schools in Savai'i and had provided a worksheet to the same five girls that attended their programme at Tanoa Tusitala Hotel in March, to teach them about carbon audits.

"And we taught them in theory and [in a] practical [sense] how to perform a carbon audit," she said.

Ms. Ah Young explained that the students were excited about the project and how they were interested in conducting a carbon audit.

The carbon audit will finish in the next two weeks, and members of the Lanulauava Student Association will then visit the schools for the findings.

She had wanted the students to gain experience in practical activity and acknowledged that they learnt quickly and had put in a lot of work.

They plan to take the project further and hope to create greening strategies that can be applied to colleges and Primary Schools, and will work together with participating schools to create green strategies that will help benefit all educational institutions.

She added that if other schools reach out to them for a carbon audit then they would be happy to go to these schools.

Ms. Ah Young gives her thanks to their major sponsors and donors such as the British High Commission in Samoa, the Samoa Conservation Society, the Ministry of Education Sports and Culture and all the schools they have visited.