Thursday, August 28, 2008

CAREER DAY!!!!

So, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted anything on here. Let’s just say I took the summer off…from the blog at least. On the other hand, this summer has been a busy one for me as a volunteer. Due to the early departure of a friend and fellow volunteer, I fell into a role of co-organizer of Samoa’s Career Day.
Career Day is an event that has been held for the past eight years. Career paths after the high school level are often a puzzle to young Samoans. Many see migrating away from Samoa, most commonly to New Zealand, Australia, and the US, as the best way to ensure a monetary income. Remittances to families from relative abroad make up a healthy chunk of Samoa’s economy. The idea of Career Day is to expose Samoan young adults to career paths and job opportunities that are available within the country.
Career Day is held in conjunction with the National University of Samoa. Various local businesses and government organizations are invited to set up booths for the kids to visit. The participants can tell the kids about the job opportunities and explain any further education is needed for a career in their field. Then they can go visit the department of the college where they might gain that education. This year also included technical schools for arts and mechanical skills.
Anyway, so I’ve made this sound pretty boring but it wasn’t really. Actually it was pretty exciting. Here are some pictures. Hopefully they’re more exciting than my written description.






The Main Fale for the event. Events in Samoa are generally sponsored by one of the two cell phone companies. In this case DIGICEL. (originally founded in Carribean countries, they have moved their island operations into Samoa.)





The tents to hold extra presenters before they arrived. The before pic.






This is the inside of that giant Fale. There were close to two thousand kids at the event so there was lots of overfow out of the sides. Luckily traditional Samoan buildings (Fales) don't have sides!







Some of the overflow.







And so it begins. This row included the SUNGO (the local umbrella for Samoa's non-profits), the Samoan Aids Foundation, and Red Cross Samoa (the guys in the vests). Although the latter two may not provide many jobs, this is a great opportunity to spread the word about their programs and initiatives. AS of now I think there have only been about 8 cases of AIDS in Samoa. The aim is to keep the number that small.




This is one of the Bank's booths. Fancy.




The Fire and Rescue services came and brought their truck. Think you could work on one of these, Brian?







This year we invited the technical and arts schools. This is the art school, Beautiful Expressions of Nature. Here they are showing how to make the Samoan printed cloths.






Here they are demonstrating sculpting.






This was the Don Bosco display, a Catholic school that teaches skills such as plumbing and welding. They brought the welder...and gave demonstatrations!!! Safety Schmafety.






Miss Samoa even came!!! (Later that day was the Miss NUS pageant, weird how that's a worldwide thing.)




This is physical proof that I have done work in Samoa. Yay!! Next to me is Tim, the President of Avanoa Tutusa.



This is me being the commander of the food. Don't I look scary?!?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

haha i love the fire truck. looks like it is a quarter of the weight of a normal fire truck.

Mom said...

I really enjoyed the pictures and know that Lydia will also. Great job Erin!

Unknown said...

yikes, you do look scary! nice skirt.