Supporting Pasifika achievement

Growing the size and skills of the Pacific workforce takes more than just financial support, it’s also about providing appropriate mentoring, coaching, cultural and pastoral care, and identifying career pathways. It’s also about just plain motivating and inspiring others to believe in themselves and strive for excellence. This is evidenced in our 2017 results, with 67 mental health and addiction scholarship recipients being the largest number of recipients awarded in the scheme’s eight-year history.

2017 Futures that work coaching and mentoring workshop

It was fantastic to see a strong cohort of Pacific scholarship recipients undergoing the annual Futures that work coaching and mentoring workshop held in May 2017. The purpose of the workshop is to equip Le Va scholarship recipients with the right resources and tools to support them to successfully complete their course of study on time. Using Le Va’sTeuila mentoring and coaching framework, this means identifying specific support that recipients may need (if any) in a holistic way.

The workshop focused on the following outcomes.

• Understanding the Futures that work programme and the commitments and obligations required.
• Increasing knowledge of the mental health and addiction issues for Pasifika people in New Zealand.
• Enhancing understanding of workforce issues, and linking qualifications to career pathways.
• Identifying personal learning preferences, communication styles and leadership characteristics that are conducive to better course outcomes.
• Identifying informal and formal supports that are conducive to holistic wellbeing and better course outcomes.
• Connecting with recipient cohorts in the same region and/or field for peer support throughout the year.
• Engaging recipients near completion of qualification with leaders and/or potential employers in their chosen career.

Thank you to our wonderful facilitators: Apollo Taito (Le Va), Roseann Gedye (communication and education expert), Karl Tusini-Rex (Careers NZ)  and Shana Malio (Mentoring and Tutoring Education Scheme, Great Potentials Foundation).

2017 Scholarships dinner

Recognising and celebrating educational achievement for Pasifika communities is important. Some recipients may have defied all odds to get to this point in their academic and professional career, and it’s also important to visibly role model that success is possible, especially for future generations. Over the past eight years Le Va has supported many recipients to graduate that are ‘first in family’. And we know that when one family member breaks through that higher education point, that more family members are almost certainly going to complete a tertiary qualification. 

With 150 friends, family and supporters present, the dinner at the Fale o Samoa in Auckland was a source of inspiration, motivation and hope, not just to grow the size, skills and cultural competency of the Pacific mental health workforce, but for intergenerational success in the years to come.

View the full photo album on our Facebook page.