Henrietta Hunkin-Tagaloa has been appointed as the Pacific Director for Tu Ora Compass Health joining the Executive Team.  

Tū Ora Compass Health, provides Primary Health and wellbeing services to the greater Wellington, Porirua, Kapiti coast and Wairarapa populations.  Of Samoan and Niuean heritage, Wellington born Hunkin-Tagaloa has supported General Practices in several roles within Tū Ora over the last nine years, including Team Leader of the Practice Relationship Team.

This is an exciting opportunity to closer examine how we can integrate Māori and Pasifika practices, concepts and ways of living into a health service experience with better outcomes

 

During the 2019 Measles outbreak in Samoa – Hunkin-Tagaloa mobilised and packed out two containers to send to Samoa. In addition, she organised the Action for Samoa concert, raising over $7000 towards supporting the Samoan Measles epidemic.

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Vela Manusaute is a Samoan/Niuean director and one half of famous Pacific comedian duo The Brownies.  He was the first Niuean to graduate from NZ drama school Toi Whakaari.  In 2002 he co founded the theatre and music group Kila Kokonut Krew who’s biggest hit was The Factory a musical based partly on his father’s move to NZ, in 2014 it was reborn as a web series. 

His latest creation Tropical Love Birds has been confirmed as part of the Auckland Arts Festival 2021 programme.

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Sister Cabrini Ofa Makasiale is a Fijian born Tongan from the island of Lau now living in a community of Catholic sisters in Auckland.

She is fluent in Fijian, Tongan and English and is a Registered Psychotherapist and staff member of Catholic Social Services in Otara, South Auckland.

Sister Cabrini is a NZ trained teacher who holds tertiary qualifications in counselling, psychotherapy, spirituality, theology and group facilitation and through her extensive knowledge and long experience working in the community has developed the “Pacific Living without Violence” programme.

   

She also holds a special passion for fostering leadership roles for Pasifika peoples (especially women) in the “Pasifika Way” adapted to the New Zealand Aotearoa context.

  

She was awarded Pacifica Excellence award for Education in the Community from the University of Auckland (2006).

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BC Collective comprises husband and wife team Cora Allan Wickliffe & Daniel Twiss.  They are passionate about providing opportunities and creating experiences for indigenous artists to learn and be recognised.  They have a strong connection with AUT and also began an indigenous award for the AUT school of Art and Design which is gifted annually to a graduating student because they believe in taking steps towards contributing to inspire younger artists.

BC Collective is part of an exhibition at The Dowse Museum titled From the Ground Up: Community, Cultivation and Commensality that brings together seven different approaches and perspectives to food cultivation and its consumption.

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Playing a crucial role in the New Zealand Defence Force’s response to COVID-19 and its ability to deliver aid to the Pacific has helped earn Leading Aircraftman (LAC) Dennis Tommy the Royal New Zealand Air Force Airman of the Year award.

Chief of Air Force Air Vice-Marshal (AVM) Andrew Clark said the Airman of the Year was awarded to the serviceperson who took action to make a significant and positive contribution to the RNZAF and the Defence Force, and who personified their core values.

Samoan-born LAC Tommy also played an integral part in the establishment of the Base Auckland Pasifika Group, an initiative with a focus on Pasifika welfare, professional development and community engagement, and was a mentor in the Auckland Pacific community focusing on young people - as well mentoring junior personnel in the workplace and in sport. 

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The sterling work of Samoa’s National Kidney Foundation could help stem the tide of a dangerous epidemic in the island nation, University of Otago research shows.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is recognised as Samoa’s fourth major cause of death, placing a heavy burden on the Samoan people and its health budget.

The National Kidney Foundation of Samoa (NKFS) has provided a largely government funded haemodialysis service in the country since 2005, but demand for treatment has risen rapidly in recent years. 

That research, published this month in Lancet Regional Health, has seen University of Otago Pacific Research Fellow Dr Malama Tafuna’i study the data collected from the NKFS since its inception. Dr Tafuna’i is an Otago-trained GP who usually resides in Samoa but is currently based in Dunedin completing a PhD under the supervision of Professor Rob Walker and Assoc Professor Faumuina Faafetai Sopoaga, with the Department of Medicine and the Centre for Pacific Health.

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The annual Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards celebrates and recognises excellence in Pacific arts across a range of arts practices and career stages Tanu Gago (MNZM) is an award winning photographer, interdisciplinary artist, and filmmaker. He is a founding member of the Auckland vogue scene, as well as the co-founder and creative director of award-winning Queer Indigenous Arts Collective FAFSWAG.He is a 2020 Arts Foundation Arts Laureate, the 2014 Auckland Festival of Photography Annual Commission recipient, the 2018 Macmillan Brown artist in residence, and in 2019 was inducted into the Order of Merit, with Queen's honours for services to Pacific arts and the LGBTQIA+ community.  More recently he has been awarded the Creative NZ Arts Pasifika Contemporary Pacific Artist Award 2020 which recognizes an artist who has demonstrated innovation in their artform and work in a unique artform who continually push the boundaries of their practi

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Leon Perrie is a botany curator at the Te Papa museum who has done research that focuses on New Zealand’s ferns: their numbers, locations and identification. 

He has used DNA analysis to address this work and such questions as how ferns are related to one another and to species overseas.  Leon is currently working on accounts for the online eFlora of New Zealand. He also works on Pacific ferns, and has studied other plant groups, particularly Pseudopanax (lancewoods and five fingers).

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On the 15th of november, the NZ prime minister and Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damien O’Connor announced the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as fully concluded and signed.

Increase to New Zealand’s GDP by around $2 billion (overall)

Increase opportunities for NZ exporters to access regional markets

Cuts red tape and offers one set of trade rules across the Asia Pacific region

New government procurement, competition policy and electronic commerce offers NZ exporters increased business opportunities

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A New Zealand born Samoan, Matt Brown is an internationally acclaimed barber and hair artist,  communicator, husband, and father of three children known for ‘giving great cuts’ and ‘inspiring  great men.’ 

He is a survivor of family violence and childhood sexual abuse and shares his story with  the men who frequent his busy Christchurch and Palmerston North barbershops, My Fathers  Barbers, as a way to foster vulnerability, healing, and connection. 

He has also facilitated a barbering  program inside Christchurch Men’s Prison, Te Puna Wai O Tuhinapo, a Christchurch youth justice  facility and will continue to work alongside Corrections NZ as a patron throughout 2020. 

Matt co-founded She Is Not Your Rehab with his wife Sarah and launched the concept in his 2019  TEDx talk. He says the movement is simply an invitation for men to acknowledge their own  childhood trauma and to take responsibility for their healing so that they can transform their pain  instead of transmitting it on those around them. 

This week She is not your rehab launched a new campaign video ‘Dear Mr Rock’ aimed to get THE ROCK (as in the actor/wrestler) to wear the #Shesnotyourrehab t-shirt and take a photo with it -  to bring awareness to the culture around abusive relationships, domestic violence and unhealthy ideals of masculinity.  

We have co-founder of She’s Not Your Rehab, ambassador for the It’s Not Ok Campaign and internationally acclaimed barber Matt Brown.

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