On April 16 and 17, U.S. Navy Captain Wallace Lovely led a small delegation to Majuro to prepare for the upcoming Pacific Partnership 2013, a humanitarian assistance mission that will visit the RMI and other Pacific Island countries later this year. These missions include sailors from a number of countries and helps to improve the response time and effectiveness when a crisis hits. During this visit, Captain Lovely, who serves as Commodore for Pacific Partnership 2013, met with President Loeak and members of his Cabinet, RMI Ministry of Health officials, RMI Police Commissioner George Lanwi and members of Sea Patrol, as well as other RMI Pacific Partnership counterparts.
In addition to official meetings, Captain Lovely and his team took time to visit the local NGO Waan Aelon in Majel (WAM), locally famous for their traditional canoe building and carpentry programs, as well as to take a short boat tour of the Majuro Lagoon.
Pacific Partnership 2013 will commence in early July 2013 with several activities planned, including sports contests, a veterinary clinic, and CPR training.
Captain Lovely came away from this trip with new ideas too, including boating etiquette, a local food cook-off, shipboard firefighting and scuba certification for first responders.
