Increasing Samoan women’s physical activity levels

International immersion programs have been shown to have many benefits for Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) pre-service teachers, including the development of cultural competency. However, they can also provide the opportunity to develop more sustainable outcomes for the physical activity levels of female students in host nations such as Samoa

Contemporary Australian teacher education programs require graduating teachers in Australia to demonstrate a range of professional competencies including an increased focus on cultural understanding and inclusion. This has impacts on such discipline areas as HPE, and international immersion programs have been identified as one effective way to address the issue. However, whilst immersion programs provide benefits for university students to bring and apply their new learnings back to their own setting, there is an opportunity to achieve greater impacts for host nations.

Due to the impacts of COVID-19 and the implementation of travel restrictions to and from Australia, university immersion programs have been placed on hold for an extended period of time. With the easing of restrictions, the opportunity to re-engage with international immersion programs has occurred. Given the recent pause in programs, it is timely to take stock and re-evaluate the positioning of such programs through a lens of authentic partnerships and shared outcomes that go beyond the previous benefits aligned with increased capacity for Australian students.

Supported through the New Colombo Plan (NCP), Charles Sturt University (CSU), a regionally based institution, has adopted the NCP to undertake HPE teacher education immersion. In the past there have been four iterations of a physical activity focused Samoa Sports Outreach Program (SSOP). Findings from the SSOP noted that participants expressed an increased awareness of both culture and diversity along with the need to be cognizant of the impact that this awareness has on their professional practice and ability to operate effectively as a teacher.

One of the key drivers behind the creation of the SSOP was the provision of an authentic opportunity to engage pre-service HPE teachers in a program that would capture their interest through an alignment with sport. Initially, the program was heavily focused on rugby to help engage Samoan school students into health focused lessons across a range of schools and community settings. On reflection, and through an equity lens, it is apparent that early iterations of the SSOP privileged male participants, both from an Australian university and from a Samoan student participation perspective. Consequently, the SSOP has been reimagined to focus on the physical activity of girls, recognizing the role this can play in promoting gender equality.

The alignment to a host country such as Samoa, with both its young population and increasing negative health trends associated with females in terms of body weight and associated conditions such as diabetes, could provide a setting where a targeted physical activity international immersion program such as the SSOP can develop sustainable and impactful partnerships. In Samoa’s population (190,000), approximately 80% have been identified as under 30 years of age, highlighting a significantly large youth sub-population, supporting the positioning of such programs in school/educational settings. In 2020, obesity levels were estimated at approximately 81% in women, with trend data revealing that diabetes rates rose from 2% to approximately 20% between 1978 and 2013.

Schuster and Schoeffel (2018) identify that despite a range of policies in place that specific focus on the participation of girls in sport in Samoa, there are there is a notable absence of female participation in all levels of recreation and competitive sport in the country, particularly when compared to their male counterparts, as a result of perceived barriers aligned to culture class and location.

Supporting the push to reimagine programs such as the SSOP is the release of global initiatives aligned with UN Sustainable Development aspirations, including increased levels of support for impacted communities and target populations groups to recover, rebound and reimagine post COVID-19 (UNICEF). These programs provide a catalyst to create authentic links to schools and educational programs under a partnered approach. With this in mind, the proposed SSOP incorporates a targeted (H)PE program utilising a range of Australian teacher education and exercise science students and academics to work closely with schools, teachers, and university staff to develop a series of opportunities to promote physical activity opportunities for female students and community members.

Benefits include providing a support mechanism for Samoan stakeholders with an additional voice to aid those educators and programs currently in situ. The United Nations Office on Sport and Development for Peace (UNOSDP) has advocated for a focus on empowering young people in such spaces as physical activity and mental health through the notion of partnering, while UNICEF identifies that a key consideration for the future is finding tangible ways to strengthen mental health services for children, adolescents, parents, and frontline workers. Further, UNICEF identifies adolescents particularly girls are especially vulnerable to mental health stressors and that there is a genuine need to explore opportunities that privilege these populations through such platforms as exercise, sport, and education. Building on this, sport has been identified as an important enabler of sustainable development by the UN and through its global reach and appeal and is a tool that should be embraced as a platform to engage young people (UNOSDP). The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) focus on gender equality, particularly in regions of the world such as the Indo-Pacific, recognizes high rates of obesity and diabetes estimated to affect 1 in 3 adults. A key facet underpinning the program is alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goals, as reflected in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Sport for Development and Peace which advocates that through sport and physical activity, women and girls can be empowered and benefit from the positive impact that sport has on health and psychosocial conditions (Lemke, 2016). The program will specifically align with Goals 3,4, and 5:

• Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
• Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning
• Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls)

with additional alignment to Goal 17, which is underpinned by the strengthening of partnerships including encouraging and promoting effective public, private and civil partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of those partnerships (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs)

The SSOP in partnership with the National University of Samoa (NUS), aims to co-create and design a more inclusive and sustainable project and research agenda, built around the needs of the host country, building on the benefits that have been identified for the Australian HPE students taking part. Once established, the reimagined partnership will provide the basis for additional universities across the Oceanic and Pacific region to join.

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Matt Winslade is an Associate Professor of Health and Physical Education and Associate Head of School, Education at Charles Sturt University. He has a keen interest in exploring meaningful ways of developing inter-cultural competence for pre-service teacher education students. Matt is committed to establishing a working Oceanic HUB of Health and Physical Education providers linking Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific nations.  

Dr Lana McCarthy is a personal Development, Health and Physical Education at Charles Sturt University. Lana has been an Assistant Lecturer in Physical Education at Massey University in New Zealand, where she completed her Doctoral studies and is also extremely passionate about coaching and was a regionally and nationally appointed netball coach in NZ to a range of high-performance netball teams spanning secondary school, U17, U19 and U23 level.