The British High Commissioner to Samoa, Victoria Treadell, made her final visit to Samoa with her time in the region coming to an end in July.
Finishing up her four-year term in Wellington in New Zealand, Mrs. Treadell said she would miss our part of the world.
“I have had a fantastic four years,” she said. “It has been a great privilege and there have been some amazing people that I have met.
“And there have been people who have inspired as well.
And sometimes you are inspired by the simplest of things and you are inspired by where you can help and you can see the sort of difference that that help makes.
“You have some amazing people in Samoa who I have really enjoyed talking to and I go away refreshed and reenergised.”
At a press conference held at the British High Commissions’ Honorary Consul’s office in Apia, Mrs. Treadell said one of the highlights of her tenure was establishing a high profile Honorary Consul in Brenda Heather-Latu.
“It has been fantastic to find someone who can properly represent us because we don’t have our own presence here,” she said.
“But actually through Brenda we now do, and it is great to see the British Consulate sign outside her office.
“So I think that is an important and significant step.”
She said another high point of her time was the relationships that her High Commission has built up here in Samoa.
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“One of the things I didn’t mention but if I come back to the gender agenda it’s creating a new network of women,” she said.
“There are lots of women networks here in Samoa but they belong to different membership organisations.
“I think we have provided a catalyst by some of the meetings that I have had and most recently facilitated by Brenda to bring a cross-section of women together - whether from the public sector, the private sector, academia or indeed the social sector and N.G.O.s. - who are strong women, who are women in leadership positions.
“Developing the concept that we will evolve with them, and when I say we I might have been the one who started this process with the partners here, but it is something that the British High Commission as an institution will take forward.
“The concept that these senior women will identify younger women and act as mentors for them.
“To help them realise what their potential is and to be inspired by what is possible.
“So that is certainly something that Brenda on the ground here is going to help to facilitate and the plan there is that Brenda will host two events each year, sometimes coinciding with the British High Commissioners visit. “As we have done in a small way in the first few events that we have done here to talk about this concept.
“And I think that that will be something that is organic and will grow in its own right and become inspirational in its own right.”
She said other projects she has enjoyed seeing real world impacts from that her Commission had help to establish was the biodigester project and also the police training program that is offered to two senior police officers each year.
“I think those are some of the highlights that I will remember with great fondness.”
During the press conference Her Excellency spoke of the wide ranging programs and initiatives that she had personally been involved in, which included ones focused on gender, climate change with renewables, her Commission’s ongoing work with the European Union on water projects, the opening up of their Chevening Scholarship Program to Samoans, the police training initiative and their partnership with Women in Business and Samoa Biogas Systems.
His Excellency Jonathan Sinclair will succeed Mrs Treadell as the British High Commissioner to New Zealand.
In a press release issued by the British Government Mr Sinclair said he was honoured by the appointment and that he looked forward to strengthening the warm and long-standing partnerships between Great Britain and New Zealand and to discovering new opportunities for both nations.
Mr Sinclair has yet to present his credentials to Samoa’s Head of State His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese.
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