DHR

Twenty-eight students yesterday received their Certificate in culinary arts during the American Samoa Culinary Academy graduation ceremony for the first ever culinary school in the territory, a project that the American Samoa Government hopes will ready local workforce for the hospitality industry.

Human Resources director Evelyn Vaitautolu Langford had told Samoa News that among the training programs the government was looking at for the American Samoa National Emergency Grant (ASG-NEG) was a cook's training school to be set up here.

The Department of Human Resources is hoping for the first session of call center training to get underway at the start of the new year, while the second class for the School of Culinary Arts began two months ago.

American Samoa wants to train about 1,500 participants under the Call Center Training Facility project, which was awarded in July this year to California-based American Pacific Resources Inc. for $1.59 million, but the following month it was challenged by Honolulu-based American Samoa Services Associates Corporation (ASSAC), whose bid was $5 million...

Some 500 participants of the American Samoa National Emergency Grant (NEG) program are eligible to be employed in either the public or private sector or a non-profit group under a new NEG program called the NEG Work Experience Internship. The NEG program is administered locally by the Department of Human Resources (DHR).