The East-West Center has selected Amanda Malagui of Papua New Guniea to participate in the United States Institute on the Environment program. Amanda, a team leader at the Rainforest Habitat, will be among the 20 participants of the Institute, spending time in Hawaii, California, and Washington, DC over six weeks to achieve an understanding of the current environmental movement of the United States.

Full US Embassy of Papua New Guinea press release after the jump.

PORT MORESBY: Ms. Amanda Malagui of Papua New Guinea has been selected by the East-West Center (EWC) to participate in a six week United States Institute on the Environment (USIE) program.

Ambassador Rowe when congratulating Ms. Malagui said “Amanda’s participation in the six-week training is an indication of the United States’ continued engagement with the Pacific in the field of environment and conservation and the development of future leaders. We will continue to support Pacific Islanders in this way, so they are able to contribute positively to their countries upon completion of their studies.”

Ms. Malagui, a Team Leader at the Rainforest Habitat – Unitech Development & Consultancy Ltd at the University of Technology in Lae, Morobe Province is among twenty participants from Fiji, Malaysia and Singapore who will be part of the six-week course.

Ms. Malagui thanked the U.S. government and the East-West Center for hosting the program, and said “being a participant in the United States Institute on the Environment is a very good opportunity for me to attain the necessary training I need to perform my duties as an educator and leader efficiently with a new perspective in Papua New Guinea.”

“My current job as a team leader for the Rainforest Habitat, the only operating zoological institution in PNG, is challenging because the message of conservation has to be very well conveyed in the projects and programs I develop and coordinate. Also, being a woman and leading a team who is not fully grasping the purpose of the institution is a challenge,” said Ms. Malagui.

Mr. Solomon Kantha, in his role as the PNG Chapter Leader for East-West Centre (EWC) Alumni and Member of the EWC Alumni Executive Board was available to meet and share information about the United States and its educational institutions particularly in Hawaii with Ms. Malagui.

During the training, Ms. Malagui will achieve an understanding of the environmental movement in the United States by engaging advocacy, market, policy, cultural and scientific approaches to environmental issues, and seeing how these approaches are intertwined in the quest for developing sustainable pathways to environmental stewardship.

The first four weeks of the Institute are conducted on the islands of Oahu and Maui in the state of Hawai‘i. The fifth week is conducted in San Francisco and the Monterey Bay Area in collaboration with Stanford University in California. The final week takes place in Washington D.C.

Funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Institute is hosted by the East-West Center, in collaboration with over twenty organizations, including the University of Hawai‘i’s Environmental Center, Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment and the Nature Conservancy.