  {"id":199626,"date":"2024-06-19T16:31:16","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T02:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=199626"},"modified":"2024-06-19T16:31:16","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T02:31:16","slug":"resilient-workforce-american-samoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2024\/06\/19\/resilient-workforce-american-samoa\/","title":{"rendered":"$1.7M to help build resilient workforce in American Samoa"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><figure id=\"attachment_199639\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-199639\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-sea-grant-american-samoa.jpg\" alt=\"group photo\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-199639\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-sea-grant-american-samoa.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-sea-grant-american-samoa-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-sea-grant-american-samoa-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-199639\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">American Samoa Power Authority Water Division<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>To help strengthen American Samoa\u2019s critical infrastructure by building a resilient workforce, the <a href=\"https:\/\/seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu\/\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span> Sea Grant College Program<\/a> <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">(Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span> Sea Grant) and American Samoa Community College were awarded &#36;1.7 million. It is one of <a href=\"https:\/\/seagrant.noaa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/CRW-Awards-List_508.pdf\">nine selected projects<\/a> as part of a larger &#36;60 million initiative by the Department of Commerce and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (<abbr>NOAA<\/abbr>) to develop a 21st century workforce capable of addressing the challenges posed by sea-level rise and other climate change-created hazards.<\/p>\n<p>Through collaboration with the American Samoa Power Authority, the program will provide training and certifications focused on creating climate-ready positions in the authority, enhancing the territory&#8217;s capacity to manage and adapt to climate-related threats. American Samoa heavily relies on the American Samoa Power Authority for essential services such as electric power, trash pickup and drinking water.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_199638\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-199638\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-sea-grant-american-samoa-2-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"american samoa\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-199638\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-sea-grant-american-samoa-2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-sea-grant-american-samoa-2-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/manoa-sea-grant-american-samoa-2.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-199638\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">American Samoa coastline and coastal village. (Photo credit Carla Baizeau)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&ldquo;It is exciting to help ensure American Samoa is able to leverage their local expertise with support from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.noaa.gov\/inflation-reduction-act\">Inflation Reduction Act<\/a> funding to help realize our goal of a resilient American Samoa,&rdquo; said Kelley Anderson Tagarino, <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span> Sea Grant\u2019s extension faculty based in American Samoa who is leading the project. &ldquo;I am sincerely honored to work with such a wonderful team on this important project.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2>Climate frontline community<\/h2>\n<p>American Samoa is a true climate frontline community, with one of the highest rates of relative sea-level rise in the world. A significant portion of its villages and infrastructure are located along thin strips of coastal land.<\/p>\n<p>The Inflation Reduction Act is a historic, federal government investment that advances <abbr>NOAA<\/abbr>\u2019s Climate-Ready Coasts Initiative to help American communities prepare, adapt and build resilience to weather and climate events. As part of the President Biden administration\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/environmentaljustice\/justice40\/\">Justice40 Initiative<\/a>, the investments will benefit underserved communities across focus areas of climate change, training and workforce development, energy efficiency, clean water, wastewater infrastructure development and more.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu\/news-and-events\/hawaii-sea-grant-and-american-samoa-community-college-awarded-nearly-1-8-million-to-build-resilient-workforce\/\">For more information, see <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span> Sea Grant\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8211;By Cindy Knapman<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This program will provide training and certifications focused on creating climate-ready positions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[93,1314,635,73,9,438],"class_list":["post-199626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-climate-change","tag-manoa-sustainability","tag-sea-grant-college-program","tag-sustainability","tag-uh-manoa","tag-uh-sea-grant","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199626"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199646,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199626\/revisions\/199646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}