Chinese Government provides $5.1 million grant — via ETCA — for Loto Taumafai Disability Society New Campus Construction Project (Linked to Record ID#71882)

Project narrative

In 2012, the Chinese Government provided a grant worth $5.1 million to the Government of Samoa for the Loto Taumafai Disability Society New Campus Construction Project. The grant proceeds were at least partially drawn from an economic and technical cooperation agreement (ETCA) that the two governments signed in April 2012 (captured via Record ID#71882). The purpose of the project was to construct a National Disability Center (known as the Loto Taumafai Center for Disabled People) — with eleven classrooms and other necessary facilities — for the Loto Taumafai Society for People with Disabilities in Vaitele Fou (Vaitele-uta), next to the Faatuatua School. The two acre campus (complex) was to include a vocational workshop, a special pool to treat disable children, computer rooms, gymnasium, dining hall, and a two story office block. The center was designed to have an intake of 150 students, and an early intervention program that reaches out to approximately 300 children from Upolu and Savaii. The Samoan government first requested funding from the Chinese Government for the construction of the Loto Taumafai Disability Society New Campus (or Loto Taumafai School at Vaitele for the Disabled) in Vaitele Fou in 2010. A project feasibility study was then undertaken with financial support from another ETCA that the Samoan and Chinese governments signed on January 14, 2010 (captured via Record ID#72282). Hunan Construction Engineering Group Corporation was the contractor responsible for project implementation. A groundbreaking ceremony took place on May 9, 2014 and a completion ceremony took place on November 6, 2015. The National Disability Center was then officially handed over to the local authorities on December 23, 2015.