Professors receive grant for project in American Samoa

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Dolores A Foley, (808) 956-2780
Associate Professor & Chair, Urban and Regional Planning
Posted: Dec 8, 2010

UH Mānoa Department of Urban and Regional Planning co-principal investigators Dolores Foley and Luciano Minerbi were awarded $366.091 through a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) grant  for a project in American Samoa: "Capacity Building For Community Resilience: Sustainable Ecosystem And Disaster Resilience At The Village Level." 
 
This three-year project will utilize a participatory approach to empower communities to assess their vulnerabilities and capacities in the face of identified hazards. Facilitated processes will be utilized to help communities identify their problems, solutions and the implementation of their own strategies. The main objective of this project is the development of a village level course on building community resilience that assist villages in developing Village Resilience Plans. 
 
The project will bring practicum students from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning to work with students from the American Samoa Community College starting in Spring 2011.