Coastal Community Resilience Training brings discussion of ways to guard against hazards
This past Wednesday morning, the Homeland Security Headquarters in Tafuna hosted a full day of discussions with local government department stakeholders and the media about different ideas and ways American Samoa can guard against natural disasters and life threatening hazards.
The training was lead by Filipo Ilaoa, who is a special assistant to the Director of Governors in Hawai’i. Modules for this training included Resilience Concepts, Understanding Risks from Natural Hazards, Building Resilience, and Moving Forward.
This one day awareness course provided participants with a concept of resilience as it applies to coastal communities with a focus on it as a unifying framework recovery. The course emphasized target capabilities to enhance preparedness and response to natural disasters, including chronic, as well as extreme events affecting our coastal communities.
Ester Savini, a DHS Training Coordinator, told Samoa News, “resilience is our ability to prevent a short-term hazard event from turning into a long-term community or territorial wide disaster. The ability to rebound more quickly can reduce negative human health, environmental, and economic impacts. It is imperative that we effectively prepare our territory to respond to emergency situations, adequately prepare to recover in the aftermath.”
She added, “the American Samoa Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, provided participants with background on natural hazards. _In addition, the course training guided the participants with an approach to assess community resilience and develop next steps for improved resilience.”
Savini noted “it was a very productive training, great dialogue with the participants throughout the entire training. Instructors were very pleased with the contribution by the participants, and participants look forward to future trainings provided by the ASDHS.”
The training coordinator thanked the participants in the course, noting “instructors were very pleased with the contributions by the participants.”