 Poem competition - “O matua o faiaoga muamua’ Human Rights Education & Training Friendly School: Empowering students through human rights education This year the Office was unable to conduct its annual Friendly School Programs due to the measles outbreak and covid-19 epidemic state of emergency restrictions. The measles outbreak and covid-19 had great impacts on the students and their studies as schools were closed for a period of time. This resulted in MESC issuing advise to partners to hold any further awareness/activities with the schools this year as the students will need all the time to catch up with their school work. For this reason all Friendly School activities for this year has been put on hold. Raising awareness amongst law enforcement  Ministry of Police This year marks 5 years since the Office in partnership with Police conducted training for police new recruits on basic human rights and relevance to their work as law enforcement officers. The Office held a 1 day workshop in February 2020 for 58 new recruits. The first half of the training covered topics including what human rights are, the international human rights standards and relevant national laws including the Fa’asamoa. The second half of the training focused specifically on applying of these standards to their everyday work as police officers and accountability for violation of human rights.  Samoa Prisons & Corrections Services The Human Rights Unit together with the Special Investigations Unit conducted human rights training for some of prisons new recruit and old staff. Special emphasis was made this year with regards to complaint handling conducted by our Special Investigations Unit. The 1 Day training was carried out with the aim of: 1. provide an introduction to the key human rights frameworks both international and national which sets standards and guidance for the work of Prisons; 2. enhance understanding of how these frameworks can be translated into practice when performing of their duties; and 3. Understand how to handle a complaint in the performance of duties Celebrating Human Rights Day: 10 December 2019 On the 10th of December every year “HUMAN RIGHTS DAY” is celebrated around the world to mark the day the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed. This year’s Human Rights Day Celebration the Office continued its focus on raising awareness of the key messages in the Family Violence Inquiry Report. The Office in partnership with the village of Vaiee supported Vaiee’s Family Violence Seminar and Mrs. Vaiee Maupaolo Pageant. Mrs. Vaiee Maupaolo is a unique event in the history of pageants in Samoa Office of the Ombusman/NHRI Samoa Annual Report 2019/20 25