The Samoan government has given $US279,940 to the Samoa Victims Support Group (SVSG) - the largest grant for an NGO in Samoa.
SVSG Board Chairman, Georgina Lui and Minister of Finance, Mulipola Anarosa Molioo sign off on the largest grant to an NGO in Samoa Photo: Supplied
The Chair of the group Georgina Lui said the grant was a strong recognition of the work the NGO does to eliminate violence among Samoan families.
In the past, SVSG received funding from other organisations but Lui said that with the grant given directly from the government, they can do much more.
"Fortunately for us, it's a broad spectrum grant," she said.
"Thirty percent is going to go towards the Campus of Hope so it will provide food and medical assistance to our different shelters that we have out here. Fifteen per cent of that will go to our welfare programmes.
"Twenty percent of that will go towards our men's advocacy programmes and our youth empowerment programmes. And five percent of that grant will go towards counselling so we're going to target victims of abuse.
"Hopefully when we get the next funding if we're successful, we're going to increase counselling service providers by SVSG because we want to incorporate the people and the children who have already been through the shelter and are still suffering from trauma but are back living with the communities," Lui said.
However, the lockdown restrictions for the past two weeks have meant the SVSG shelter has had to close.
"Before we could even accept anybody into a shelter, we would have to test them and at the moment we can't accept anyone because we don't have anyone to do the testing," Lui said.
"So our shelter is closed at the moment and will continue to be closed until we get past level two I think."
The Samoan government said 46 percent of women in Samoa experience some kind of abuse from their partner.
This was reaffirmed when Samoa's Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mataafa, said there had been increased reports of domestic violence and gender-based violence during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Hon. Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, Prime Minister of Samoa Photo: Supplied / SPREP
However, Lui said that the figures could be reduced.
"We've been lucky in the past few years to have the RSE scheme and that's alleviated a lot of the financial worries for many families here because we've got income coming in from overseas, so those burdens have been lifted in a way.
"So that, and alongside improved education, I think we'll be able to see a reduction in the domestic violence figures."
Looking ahead, Lui said the grant was the start of a positive relationship with the government.
"We're really grateful to the government for this and I think that the partnership with the government is the beginning and we'll hopefully are able to continue to get funding from them and continue running the programmes, especially the counselling and awareness."
