By Staff Writer
JICA volunteer helps train local freestyle wrestlers .
( left-INSET PHOTO : JICA Volunteer and National Wrestling Assistant Coach Mr. Yuta Abe, to assist the Samoa Wrestling Association.)
The Samoa Wrestling Association is getting help from a newly arrived JICA Volunteer, to teach freestyle wrestling in Samoa.
Wrestling has many forms with origins dating back 5,000 years.
Modern Olympic Games in 1904 introduced Freestyle wrestling. A century later, women’s wrestling was introduced during the Olympic Games in Athens, 2004. Greco-Roman being a popular style of wrestling.
Respectively, JICA [Japan International Cooperation Agency] is excited to introduce JICA Volunteer and National Wrestling Assistant Coach Mr. Yuta Abe, to assist the Samoa Wrestling Association.
He is under the capable management of Tuaopepe Jerry Wallwork, President of Samoa Wrestling Association and supervised by Gaku Akazawa, National Wrestling Coach for Samoa, who also competes professionally for Samoa.
For the next two years, Yuta Abe is expected to promote Wrestling within school programs as well as to develop and train the national team and assist in building physical conditioning at the high-performance training center.
Yuta has wrestled for most of his life, over twenty-three years since the age of five years. Competing for national championships in Japan, winning first place in the 79kg freestyle division in 2018 National University Championships.
Ranking second and third in 2018 National Student Championships and Spring East Japan Student Championships/National Invitational Championships, respectively.
Yuta is the first long-term JICA Volunteer [two-years] to arrive since COVID-19 restrictions and border closures.
This makes three JICA [Japan International Cooperation Agency] volunteers currently in the country. Samoa will receive an additional six volunteers by August 2024, to increase volunteer numbers serving here.
JICA’s Volunteer [JOCV] program, is Japan’s technical cooperation schemes as part of its Official Development Assistance [ODA].
The program dispatches Japanese nationals to participate in assisting developing countries.
The objective of the program is to cooperate on economic and social development as well as reconstruction of developing countries, to deepen mutual understanding and coexistence in cross-cultural societies and volunteer to share experiences back into Japanese society.
Established in Samoa since 1972 with almost 700 volunteers working in education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, engineering, special needs, sports, environment education, meteorology, Japanese language and culture, and various other fields.
The overall achievement is to share skills and work closely with local counterparts, exchanging of enduring skillsets, culminating with local counterparts continuing the work.
Yuta paid a courtesy visit to the Ministry of Finances’ Aid Division, explaining he is “eager to start training with the Wrestling athletes and students of Samoa.”