Two United States women advocates will address and be part of a training workshop for Samoan women candidates in next months’ general elections.
The workshop will run Tuesday and Wednesday this week at the Insel Fehmarn Hotel and is funded by a $ST120,000 U.S. Embassy grant to the Samoa Ala Mai ‘Women’s Political Empowerment’ programme.
The first is Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, American Samoa’s sitting Member of Congress elected 4 November 2014.
A Republican, she is the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from American Samoa. And she has been the most senior member of the Republican National Committee since 2012.
Among her many involvements in health, social development and scouting for athletic scholarships for young people Amata was the only Pacific Islander on the 15-member commission that advised President George W. Bush in 2001 on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) issues and issued a landmark report on the health care needs of America’s AAPI communities.
Amata has also been very involved in helping build democratic institutions abroad in the Middle East, Asia for the International Republican Institute and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
In 2007 she conducted training in Washington for Iraqi and Uyghur women leaders. Other international work has included participation in several Pacific regional conferences.
Amata was a member of the 1986 American Council of Young Political Leaders study tour of Australia and was elected a member of the ACYPL Alumni Council in 1987.
The second is Cathy Allen, President/Owner of The Connections Group, Inc. and has spent the past twenty years working to help communities, governments, non-profit associations and women’s groups better communicate to the press, the public and politicians.
Allen has conducted training and been a consultant in more than 34 states, eight provinces in Canada, and 18 countries including Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, Croatia, Hungary, Spain, Algeria, France, Mexico and Cuba. She recently returned from training Muslim women to be more effective in Morocco.
Allen is a co-founder of the Center for Women and Democracy at the University of Washington in 2000.
Its mission is to link women leaders throughout the world, including sponsorship of women’s trade and training missions.
This non-profit center will also, recruit, train, and support women in choosing leadership as a career.
She has written two books and has run or consulted with more than 500 winning campaigns, (75% women) from mayors to governors, from state legislators to the U.S. Congress, from initiatives to slates of women endorsed by women candidates. Cathy serves on the Board of the American Association of Political Consultants.
The keynote address will be delivered by caretaker Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoli’ai Sailele Malielegaoi with remarks by the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Ms. Angelina Wilkinson.
