American Samoa's congresswoman visits NZ

Transcript

AUMUA AMATA RADEWAGEN: It is a very quick trip as we were just in Australia. So we are looking at ways to grow our relationship with New Zealand but primarily we are focusing on mining and minerals and primarily see how we can look at other ways to grow our relationship with New Zealand beyond what we already have. I am looking to push American Samoa's agenda as much as possible and as well provide some shoulders for women in the Pacific to stand on as they actually want to hear my story and this is actually my first time to New Zealand   

SARA VUI-TALITU: Cyclone Gita has just swept through the region and American Samoa was certainly affected. Can you tell us anything more about the recovery efforts there?

AR: You may know that I was actually down there during the storm and suffered a lot of damage. My automobile was actually destroyed and so I spent time there visiting different folks to see how we could be of further help and I had to come up to Washington to personally deal with the people up there about this.

SV: So American Samoa was mainly affected mostly in relation to infrastructure and flooding?

AR:There was quite a bit and to be honest when I was down there, some of those wind gusts reached up to 145 miles per hour and honestly I thought my house was going to blow away. And the American Red Cross when they came down from the states to do their evaluation,  they came to the same conclusion. So we got hit pretty hard by Gita.  We want to serve the people and get them back to the normal state of things as quickly as possible. There was quite a timely response to the storm and I have already said I saw the damage first hand that are affecting my neighbours and my constituents and so we want to make sure the people get served as quickly as possible. I want to thank all the people who stepped in very quickly, particularly volunteers and professionals who immediately got on a plane to come down there. I think FEMA as these damages cause difficult times and our people have suffered and we want to make sure we can alleviate the hardship and suffering caused by this emergency on my constituents.

SV: What are your goals in the role for this year? What do you hope to achieve?

AR: At the very top of it is economic development for our island. As we develop our economy, we can then create jobs and that is one of the top priorities for President Trump and the White House and I have been working closely with the governor and the Samoan leaders to see what the highest priority items are as the list goes on and on but we are working together as a team to make sure that American Samoa's agenda gets inserted in with the initiatives of the president.