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The Samoa Girl Guides Association is the national Guiding organization of Samoa. It serves 186 members (as of 2003). Founded in 1952, the girls-only organization became an associate member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1996. Its WAGGGS membership was cancelled in 2008.
Girl Guides or Girl Scouts is a movement found worldwide, which was originally and still largely designed for girls and women only. This organisation was introduced in 1909, because girls demanded to take part in the then grassroots Boy Scout Movement.
Samoa, officially the Independent State ofSamoa and, until 4 July 1997, known as Western Samoa, is a country consisting of two main islands, Savai'i and Upolu, and four smaller islands. The capital city is Apia. The Lapita people discovered and settled the Samoan Islands around 3,500 years ago. They developed a unique Samoan language and Samoan cultural identity.
The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts is a global association supporting the female-oriented and female-only Guiding and Scouting organizations in 150 countries. It was established in 1928 in Parád, Hungary, and has its headquarters in London, England. It is the counterpart of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM). WAGGGS is organized into five regions and operates five international Guiding centers. It holds full member status in the European Youth Forum (YFJ), which operates within the Council of Europe and European Union areas and works closely with these bodies.
In 1952 a Girl Guide meeting was convened by Sister Mary Patrick of Saint Mary's School on Upolu. The unit served for only four years, as the girls did not have time and there were not enough leaders. The unit was reformed when Saint Mary's pupils went to the newly established Saint Mary's College at Vaimoso, and later a Guide company was introduced. This group went on for some years, then also faded. In 1955 at the Anglican Chaplaincy (now All Saints Church at Leiifiifi, a New England schoolteacher began a Guide company, and then in 1957 a brownie pack, and in 1970 a ranger unit, which carried out tremendous community service, before it was closed nearly five years later. Many girls won scholarships and went overseas, leaving very few behind, who lost interest. In 1964, a Cadet company was established for several years, and young leaders of the various groups came from these cadets. This group closed when the program changed to a new one, but the Guides and Brownies groups continued. Since 1974, the Apia Protestant Church's Guides and Brownies have continued to develop. In September 1996, the association acquired the lease of a house at Matautu-tai in Apia, which now serves as national headquarters.
Upolu is an island in Samoa, formed by a massive basaltic shield volcano which rises from the seafloor of the western Pacific Ocean. The island is 75 kilometres long and 1,125 square kilometres in area, making it the second largest of the Samoan Islands geographically. With 135,000 people, it is the most populated of the Samoan Islands. Upolu is situated to the southeast of Savai'i, the "big island". Apia, the capital, is in the middle of the north coast, with Faleolo International Airport at the western end of the island. The island has not had any historically recorded eruptions, although three lava flows date back only a few hundred to a few thousand years.
The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion serving New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and the Cook Islands. Since 1992 the church has consisted of three tikanga or cultural streams: Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia. The church's constitution says that, among other things, it is required to "maintain the right of every person to choose any particular cultural expression of the faith". As a result, the church's General Synod has agreed upon the development of the three-person primacy based on this three tikanga system. It has three primates (leaders), each representing a tikanga, who share authority.
New England is a geographical region composed of six states of the northeastern United States: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north, respectively. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the south. Boston is New England's largest city as well as the capital of Massachusetts. The largest metropolitan area is Greater Boston with nearly a third of the entire region's population, which also includes Worcester, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island.
