Drua Fono 2015

The annual Drua fono occurs every year as a preconference meeting to the sector-wide Cutting Edge Addictions Conference. Facilitated by Le Va and supported by Matua Raki, this year we met in Nelson to share updates from the network, as well as information and innovative solutions that are working in the addiction sector for our Pasifika families.

This includes key organisations such as DHB, NGO and PHO addiction services as well as Matua Raki, Te Pou, Drug and Alcohol Practitioners Association of Aotearoa New Zealand, National Committee for Addictions Treatment (NCAT), and the Health Promotion Agency.

The Drua network provided a new information pamphlet with a new look and feel developed by the Drua Executive, to ensure visibility and promotion of Pasifika addiction issues across sectors. 

Le Va also launched the Inu Ora Alcohol guides, providing accessible simple language information about the how everyone can play a part in keeping our Pasifika communities safe from the harm caused by alcohol – in English, Samoan and Tongan languages, with Cook Islands Maori in development.

This year Drua was fortunate to host Dr Byron Seiuli as both a speaker at the fono and a keynote speaker at the conference. Dr Seiuli has contributed to Le Va’s work in the past few years and has written a guest blog for Le Va on his latest post-doctoral research.

Dr Seilui brought a wonderful story of his own journey from Samoa, living with family in the west side of Auckland and the challenges he faced growing through the transitions of life to today as a senior Pacific clinician counselling in a wide range of areas including addictions, adolescent mental health, grief and family relationships. Byron is also Postdoc Research Fellow at the University of Waikato where he lectures and convenes courses in the School of Psychology.   

The Drua fono allows all members to connect, reflect and plan for the future so that issues affecting our communities are raised and approaches towards building health and wellbeing to the wider community are compatible to our Pasifika communities. Ensuring that when culture and care connect, our communities can flourish! 

You can see photos from the fono on our Facebook page – don’t forget to like our page!

Ia manuia
Saveatama Eroni Clarke

Scenes from the Drua fono and Cutting Edge conference