Pacific Partnership 2009 returned to Solomon Islands Aug. 6 for 14 days as part of a four-month mission on board the Military Selift Command ship USNS Richard E Byrd (T-AKE 4).
Pacific Partnership works by, with and through partner nations, nongovernmental organizations and other U.S. government and international agencies to execute a variety of humanitarian civic assistance (HCA) missions in the Pacific Fleet area of responsibility.
Building on partnerships forged in previous missions, the team for Pacific Partnership 2009 includes military and government personnel from Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Korea and the United States and civilian volunteers from International Relief Teams, Project Hope and University of California San Diego Pre-Dental Society who will work alongside their local counterparts. Additionally, Loloma Foundation and Interplast will accept surgical referrals from embarked medical civic action programs.
Pacific Partnership will conduct medical, dental, veterinary and engineering civic action programs ashore at locations in Honiara and Visale on Guadalcanal and in Auki on Malaita.
For this mission, Byrd has been outfitted with humanitarian civic assistance equipment and supplies and a staff augmented with a robust multi-disciplinary team of preventive medicine personnel, veterinarians, medical and dental teams and engineering personnel. (NNS)
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