• Invited to attend Government midterm review of the National Environment Sector Plan (NESP). Guardians campaign is integrated into this plan and updated on progress to date.

• Attended several meetings with Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture (MESC) and UNESCO. Working with MESC on integrating environmental modules into national curriculum which is going well.

• Have updated and designed our waste management teaching module called “Trash Star” into teaching plan for teachers of year 7 and 8. MESC now has this to provide to their teachers. Next one to do is the coral module.

• Our program deals with five themes, “Voyaging”, “Coral/habitat”, “Fish”, “trees/terrestrial/climate change”, and “waste management” and teach them dividing into 7 modules, 3 hours each.

• Under the waste management module, students learn the difference between organics and inorganic through activities and games. The aim of this module is for students to understand the need for proper waste management and change their behavior regarding this issue.

• UNESCO has some funding for “informal” teaching initiatives such as our project, and will work with MESC to funnel through to Guardians campaign.

• Have had meetings with Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) to discuss Marine Protected Area (MPA) management of Aleipata district. This district will be undergoing MPA management planning with MNRE in FY20. CI will be supporting this.

• Project lost key staff member (CI Samoa Program Associate - Maria Sapatu) at beginning of year, as she moved to work elsewhere. This has slowed down progress as we needed to regroup and find replacement. We have found someone who only came on board as of 1st April.

• Project communications intern Vatapuia also left project as his internship came to an end. He is now working elsewhere.

• Loss of staff causes delays in momentum. A project like this requires at least two project staff.

• We have been cooperating with various partners, such as Government of Samoa, National University of Samoa and local NGOs. As mentioned in our past update, having many partners and stakeholders is great for creating a sustainable program, but does come with a significant increase in time and resources to coordinate, which can cause delays and slow down some processes and implementation eg waiting on government partners input and availability as they also have heavy work plans.

• We have been making various efforts including applying for grants to secure funds and keep Guardians campaign going.

• Plan, coordinate and implement the post Guardians campaign social perception surveys for the Aleipata district and Aiga-i-le-tai district.

• Collate and analyse survey data and complete survey final report to ascertain any impact to the greater community of the project.

• Working with partners to plan the schedule of the Guardians campaign for rest of the year.