Vaigaga Primary School breaks ground under Samoa Pacific Resilience Project

Apia, Samoa – 27 November 2023: The new Vaigaga Primary school is being built as a key resilient investment of the Samoa Pacific Resilience Project (PREP) that is jointly executed and managed by several ministries of government. The PREP’s main objective is to strengthen early warning, resilient investments, and financial protection of Samoa.

One of the key components of the Samoa Pacific Resilience project is to provide entry level resilient investments such as retrofitting or rebuilding vulnerable schools, to meet accepted building standards for resilience.

The new Vaigaga School Building is $5.8 million tala and Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa and the Faleata 2 MP, Leatinu’u Wayne Sooialo led the ground breaking ceremony last week.

The new school building is being built on the same ground where the school began with a simple stone house used by the church ministers to teach the village children in 1960. In 1984 a modernised school building was built and used by the school until it was identified as one of the most vulnerable school buildings in a risk assessment conducted in 2019.

Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa speaking at the ground breaking ceremony.

“This project is an important contribution to our national efforts to build resilient infrastructure to respond to the detrimental effects of climate change,” said the Prime Minister during the ground breaking ceremony.

“Climate change is the single most threat to the livelihoods, resources, and well-being of humanity across the globe. Small island countries like Samoa are more vulnerable to unprecedented impacts of climate change,” said Fiame.

Government continues to prioritize education as one of the key sectors of its social development priorities in the Pathway for the Development of Samoa.

“Central to this, is our drive to improve national literacy and numeracy rates from early childhood education to primary level and beyond. Equally important is our regard for the safety and well-being of our children while at school. This project attests to that need, and through genuine partnerships at all levels, we will accomplish what we have set out in the PDS,” said the Prime Minister.

The PM also acknowledged the World Bank for assisting through PREP in the construction of more resilient and safe school buildings for selected villages in Samoa.

“For the Vaigaga new school building, I am informed that it will also serve as a disaster evacuation site for the community, if and when required during emergencies,” said the PM.