Double honours for Le Va board member

Le Va board member, Josiah Tualamali’i has been honoured with two prestigious awards over the last two weeks!

Josiah was recognised for excellence and outstanding achievement as a Pasifika young person in New Zealand by The Prime Minister’s Pacific Youth Awards. He was honoured with the Air New Zealand Leadership and Inspiration Award – and as an add on, was also awarded an all expenses paid trip to Geneva with New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Just a week prior to these awards, Josiah received the Christchurch City Council Civic Award from Mayor Leanne Dalziel for his tireless youth advocacy work in Christchurch.

We are so proud of Josiah and all the amazing young people honoured. Over the last year Josiah has made such a positive contribution to Le Va and our Pasifika communities, particularly by leading and promoting youth participation and advocacy, diversity, and the voice of Pacific Youth.  Being on the board of Le Va has ensured that we take an authentic youth participation approach in our work, from Governance through to operations so we have a youth voice in decision making at all levels. This is not just consulting and engaging with young people, but empowering them to design and lead projects that are important to them and will make a real difference to their well being.

Along with Le Va’s Youth Advisory Komiti, Josiah’s influence at Le Va is what inspired our work to develop our Pasifika Youth Participation Guide. We published these co-designed guidelines to support other organisations and groups to effectively engage with an authentic youth participation approach when working alongside our Pasifika young people.

We know these awards are geared towards giving Pacific youth the opportunity to boost their future potential even higher. In Josiah’s case it’s a matter of unleashing his full potential from within. We are so blessed to have his guidance over our work and we look forward to supporting his future leadership roles for our Pasifika families and communities.

Malo le tauivi, malo le fa’amalosi.

Dr Monique Faleafa
CEO, Le Va