About Me

I was born in Samoa 13 August 1961; educated by the SMSM Sisters in St Joan of Arc Primary School in Leulumoega village; educated by the Mercy Sisters at Paul VI College also in Leulumoega; won a school award to do Bursary level (Form 7) at Baradene College Remuera Auckland New Zealand; Returned to Samoa in 1981 and worked as a cartographer trainee in Dept of Statistics; won a government scholarship to study management at the University of the South Pacific Suva Fiji 1982 - 1983; won the student exchange scheme award to study at the University of Papua New Guinea 1984 where I met my Tongan husband Sakalaia; married at the Boroko Uniting Church Port Moresby by a Tongan missionary to PNG Rev Sione Kami; moved to Australia where our first son Samuel was born 1985; moved to Tonga where we lived and worked for 10 years early 1985 to late 1994; went back to USP Fiji to complete my dual majors degree Management & English; migrated to Australia end 1994; 6 months job placement with MAQ; lived and worked in a remote aboriginal community (Pormpuraaw) in Far North Qld for 7 years late 1996 to early 2003 in positions of Council Secretary, Payroll Officer, and CDEP Manager; moved back to Brisbane to re-join our children in mid 2003; founded the Australian Tongan Youth & Community Association Incorporation; contract worker with various employers including Brisbane City Council, ECCQ, QDS, MDA, the African Community Centre in Annerley, NWAICA in Keperra, ATYCA, AMAQ, and now a full time student 2010.
My passion is in working with disadvantaged youth and migrants and with local churches to make more effective and positive impact on communities. I had a brief opportunity to work with young offenders in the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre at Wacol through a volunteer community support program which aimed at encouraging the participation of communities in the life of young offenders. It further created an opportunity for our ATYCA youth to become actively involved in making use of their time and skills to help youth in detention.
My work with communities looked more into facilitating real opportunities for disadvantaged migrants and youth to upskill themselves and find employment and/or training opportunities.
Whilst unemployment is top of the list as a pressing need for most migrants other social problems affect them more such as missing families and friends back in their home countries, disconnecting from their spirituality, lack of knowing and understanding the Australian lifestyle and systems.
My work with ECCQ under the Be Fearless project looked at identifying problems migrants confront; generate solutions via the formation of a collective voice to advocate and refer needs of Pacific Islander migrants; however the project fell through due to discontinuation of funding.
The work I did for the African community in Annerley was to coordinate a community jobs plan project to give African migrants jobs and or training outcomes.
I guess my main personal work was in the establishment of the Australian-Tongan Youth and Community Association based in Fortitude Valley which was a community respond to needs expressed from members on the need to generate meaningful activities to sustain the interests of our Australian born Tongan youth. There was a genuine concern that the local church was not in a financial position to afford more practical programs to meet the needs of the youth for jobs, further training and professional development. Various employment/training projects were implemented and a total of about 170 people were assisted primarily of PI background the majority also were young people. The projects were only short term initiatives in areas of Building Construction, IT, Newspaper, and Event Management. Running parallel was the community support program for youth in detention at the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre in Wacol. These cultural support programs involved the teaching of basic Tongan day to day language, traditional dancing, and musical and sports activities in the centre.
In 2005 and 2007 the Tongan youth staged the Inaugural Tongan Heilala Festival in Brisbane, the first was held in King George Square 2005, and in Southbank in 2007 respectively. This attracted many of the Pacific Islander communities from around Brisbane especially the youth who share their pride of culture but also displaying raw talents in music, drama, dancing, and sports.
My experience with NWAICA in Keperra was in working with Indigenous young offenders under court order and referrals to our Break Away project. It involved working with these young people, their families and communities in generating alternatives and meaningful activities that were educational, cultural friendly, and fun.
In MDA I was contracted to work in a very "refugee" oriented context with 4 major groups: Middle East, African, Vietnamese and Pacific Islander and whilst it was okay with the first two groups it was a big struggle working with Vietnamese and Pacific Islanders. Firstly PIs don't quite come under the banner of being a "refugee" community experience. I was frustrated that the database used to register details of people who access services provided by MDA did not fit the case of Pacific Islanders. There was a need for the organisation to change the database by adding a new set of questions to compliment the new project I coordinated namely: the Multiculticultural Employment Opportunity Project (MEOP) funded by Brisbane City Council. This was taking too long and because it was a "refugee" oriented group I felt the case of Pacific Islanders was not well coordinated. At the same my own PI community group was running its own employment and training project targeting Pacific Islanders. The manipulation of this database frustrated me as I felt the organisation's real interest was to increase their numbers for reporting purposes and to look good in the eyes of the funding body. I felt it was less effective to give money to just one agency to look after the 4 different ethnic groups Vietnamese, Middle East, Pacific Islander and African. There were already existing community organisations dealing with these groups. It would have been better if money was given to them to collect data and information as requested under the MEOP.
My existing volunteer community work as Lay Minister in my local church is the one that really is close to my heart and is pivotal to everything else I do everywhere. It's sad to see many young people from Pacific Islander background are having problems with the law, are dropping out of schools early, and are fighting in night clubs, and some of them whose parents are churchgoers. It's even more frustrating to see local churches just paying a lot of "lip service" and no consistent action.
These are local problems requiring a local response. And these local Pacific Islander churches are where the real power and authority lies for change. If this centre of power and authority can be mobilised to mainstream, it can become a positive and effective institute for changing and sustaining lives for the better. The governments cannot do it on their own, departments of corrective services, communities, families, education and employment certainly cannot carry the load, THEY NEED LOCAL COMMUNITIES WHICH VERY MUCH INCLUDE LOCAL CHURCHES TO BECOME PART OF THE SOLUTION.
The work I've been involved with in the past 15 years has been working with grass root people and grass root issues affecting our youth and migrants. Whilst we are dealing with these social problems and changes at local level there are problems to be reckoned with amongst PI groups themselves and government. This brings me to the "plight" many of the small Pacific Islander groups confront specifically in relation to the various government programs and initiatives being implemented in a government attempt to respond to the inclusiveness of "multiculturalism" in the case for Pacific Islanders.
It is my desire to continue to work with Pacific Islanders at local grass root level; to maximise positive impact our local churches can play in the wider community as well as re-visiting some of the existing government programs and funding initiatives for Pacific Islanders in order to achieve maximum outcomes and appropriating them to the real needs and issues affecting Pacific Islanders.
My taking the SWSP7123 course in Community Planning, Engagement and Governance aims at acquiring much needed contemporary approaches to working better with communities, to generate and sustain better outcomes for our youth and communities, to foster closer and successful working relationship with government at all levels, to increase active participation of Pacific Islander youth and communities in the life of the wider Australian community, and to increase knowledge and better understanding of Australians on Pacific Islanders and vice versa.