“For instance, if I throw something at a child and it missed, that’s not violence because it didn’t hurt him, however, they do not know and consider the fear that child is feeling when he was getting thrown at”
The Catholic Church has established a Society with a vision to revive family love and end violence in homes.
Called the Gaualofa Society, its mission is to work with families to restore the peace and love into the home, “into the likeness of the holy family.”
The Society was launched during a gathering at the Tofamamao Retreat Centre at Leauva’a yesterday. The keynote address was delivered by Archbishop Alapati Lui Mataeliga.
The Society will be based at Moamoa, adjacent to the Catholic Theological College there.
Among its goals is to tackle violence in the home.
“Our Society’s initial focuses are to help eliminate all forms of violence with greater emphasis on domestic violence by providing alternative dynamic community awareness programs,” documents obtained by the Sunday Samoan say.
“We will also provide general one to one counseling and spiritual counseling, therapeutic and rehabilitation open and closed individual group programs for both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence.”
Director of Catholic Social Services, Sale Mikaele Kolio said they aim to address the three major categories of violence, which are physical, psychological and sexual.
“Violence in Samoa is enormous and yet people don’t consider violence as such,” he said.
“For instance, if I throw something at a child and it missed, that’s not violence because it didn’t hurt him, however, they do not know and consider the fear that child is feeling when he was getting thrown at.”
“Those are the stuff that I need to explain to the people, threatening is part of violence.”
Asked to elaborate, he said: “The three main categories of violence are, physical, psychological and sexual.”
“As I move along in this program I have to clarify the smaller ones like verbal and other types of violence but those are the three major categories of violence.”
What was the reason behind setting up the Society?
“The origin of this mission was from the Archbishop Alapati Mataeliga,” he said.
“It was from the time when he was trying to merge together with the Samoa Victim Support however after two days, we received a phone call that we won’t be able to merge.”
“So I said to the Archbishop that one day, I will be back in Samoa and fulfill the mission. So now it is done and we will be able to provide all our victims with everything that they need to get better.”
The Society will be fully staffed. And they are undergoing training to prepare them for the mission.
“We are doing intensive trainings in social theories that will make our facilitators present better,” said Sale.
He said the programme would target schools, teachers and young people.
“Like I said violence is not just hurting people physically but mainly psychologically.”
So how is this Society different from others, including the Samoa Victim support?
“The difference between us and the Samoa Victim is that our ways are scientific but we are using every day Samoan language.”
“We will also present it to the people so that they can actually feel the sensitive and the pain that they are going through when it comes to violence.”
“Secondly, we also provide rehabilitation programmes, therapy, counseling because I have the qualification and the experience in those areas.”
The Gaualofa Society is a non profitable organization.
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