Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — In her keynote address, Dr. Mafutaga Tagaloa-Tulifau, a product of the local public education system, emphasized to some 300 participants at the Governor’s 2018 Youth Empowerment Summit the importance of achieving “higher education” in their future.

Tagaloa-Tulifau, a surgical podiatrist operating her own clinic in Lakewood, California, was the keynote speaker yesterday, which is day one of the two-day youth summit at the Pago Pago Youth Center, where Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga called on the youth to gain a better understanding of among other things, “our political status”.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

“Youths for today, are leaders for tomorrow” which is the theme throughout the summit and “we are here to empower our youth and build their self-determination to become great leaders of America Samoa,” Tagaloa-Tulifau said at the opening of her address.

To the youth, “everyone of you is unique in your own ways and each person lives life differently,” she said. “Everyone has skills, personality, resources, experiences and potential that deserves to be discovered and nurtured.”

What’s expected from all of these collective talents of the youth, is that, the “end product will serve as a solution to the problems that we are facing and will be facing in our territory,” she said.

“To build good leaders of America Samoa, our youth need higher education and there is absolutely no doubt about that,” said the 1983 class of Fagaitua High School graduate, who cited several examples of what a “higher education” can do.

It will “enable you to expand your knowledge and skills. It will enable you to express your thoughts clearly in speech and writing... [as well as] increase your understanding of the world and your community,” Tagaloa-Tulifau said.

Additionally, it “will help you understand the political system and will increase your knowledge of our government. Higher education will help you understand that we are stewards of our cultural heritage, which includes our language, land and resources so that we will preserve and protect them, so we can pass them on to our future generations, like it was passed on to us by our forefathers. And this is one of the specific goals of this summit.”

“Higher education will improve our individual qualities of life,” she said, and noted that more than 50% of her patient population suffer from chronic disease such as diabetes and high blood pressure; 100% of these patients are non compliant and 100 of these patients do not have higher education.

She explained a higher education would have helped the patients understand their medical condition so they would become more compliant and prevent several complications such as amputations and heart attacks.

“So without a college education, we may be left out. And as time goes on, the relationship between a college education and success will become more and more significant in our information driven global economy,” she said.

According to the Loma Linda University graduate, she had heard people say, “college is not for everybody” knowing the value of a college education, would more likely move you to pursue higher education.

She has also heard people say “they cannot afford college”, but this “mentality needs to change because your high school career center has a wealth of information about where to go to get money to pay for college,” she said.

Tagaloa-Tulifau then cited a well-known quote from the late former South African President, Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world”.

(Samoa News will report later this week on Tagaloa-Tulifau’s work, including her clinic being a participant in research clinical trials, and her quest to become a physician.)

GOVERNOR’S REMARKS

In his special remarks, Lolo noted that since his administration took the helm of government in 2013, July has always been declared Youth Month, and this includes calling a youth conference or summit so that youth can exchange views and ideas and discuss issues of importance to the future of the territory.

“It is our belief that there should be conference where the young men and women of American Samoa should come together [to] share their views, ideas and discuss issues that are of critical importance to the future of American Samoa,” the governor told youth participants, who were also informed that the two-day summit is for them to “share your values, share your views and discuss some of the issues which we feel are important as we move forward.”

According to the governor, leaders have stated many times that the “future of a country is in the hands of its youth.”

“We will never get to that point unless you are given the opportunity to fully understand what the future looks like, the process of going through, in order to get to the future,” he said, noting that there are “some very critical topics” for the summit for discussion.

“Number one and foremost:  ‘self determination’ — the freedom for every human being to determine for him and for herself,” the governor said, and noted United Nation meetings where American Samoa is discussed as to whether it’s a colony of the United States or is it a free country.

He said “American Samoa was never a colony” with the U.S. under a relationship that began over 100 years ago. And unlike other states and territories, “we were ceded to the United States by our own will and we still hold that belief... today,” he said.

As American Samoa moves forward on self-determination, Lolo said there are “some issues that we need to understand, there are some cases you need to clarify, in order for us to be free people as far as decisions making are concerned.”

“We thought we are doing okay with what we have, but until you are given that knowledge, instill that understanding in yourself, then you will be able to make that decision for our generations to come,” he told the youth participants.

He also said, “many questions have been asked as who we are” and “our political status” remains unresolved, “even the federal government doesn’t fully understand, who we are... an unorganized, unincorporated territory. And each and every individual has a different definition for that political status.”

The governor told the gathering that the US Department of Interior “has been very receptive in our need and in our call to help us educate our people to understand who we are and where we are heading.”

And that’s why, the Office of Political Status, Constitutional Review & Federal Relations, under the Governor’s Office was established to “look into the question of self determination,” he said.

Additionally, “many questions have been asked not only to our political status, to our culture association with the US and even our own religious beliefs.”

“It is your turn, as young men and women of American Samoa, to find ways to understand who we really are,” he said.

Among the issues on the agenda for the summit is giving the Fono the authority to override the governor’s veto of legislation. Currently that authority rests with the US Secretary of Interior.

Lolo said this issue will be a referendum in the November general election an he hopes the youth will share their “feelings and your attitude” on this issue.

In closing Lolo called on the participants to “gain understanding not only of political status” during the summit, but also “our culture and our religious beliefs.”