Partnership with Pacific communities

Talanoa – the conversation

For Pacific peoples, partnership is a natural way of living. People from the Pacific islands have a collective mindset that is deeply rooted in culture and community. Pasifika peoples learn from a young age the importance of family, community, spirituality, and cultural values. Children are taught to respect and value relationships, and that they have an obligation of caring for more than just themselves and their nuclear family. The fundamentals of Pasifika culture are never based on just the individual, but always as a collective working for a shared purpose.

Partnership starts with and is only possible through talanoa. To talanoa means to talk, speak, share ideas, and have a conversation. The responsibility is put upon the parents to talanoa and teach their tamaiti/fanau/tamariki (children) the cultural protocols of respect through le Vā – a concept in Samoa that refers to the sacred relationship space between yourself and others.

Talanoa always comes first, to find out who we are and what our responsibilities are within the sacred relationship space, le Vā. In this way, children come to understand and respect their elders, and to understand the roles and responsibilities of each person within their extended family and community.

Pacific parents or grandparents, as the first educators, use talanoa to raise children with a mindset of respect that is expressed through everyday behaviour and cultural protocols.

Le Vā – the sacred relationship space

For a Pacific person, le Vā exists between yourself and those you interact with. Knowledge of le Vā is essential for any relationship as it enables you to understand your responsibilities and the lines of respect within the relationship.

'Teu le Vā' means to ‘nurture, maintain, and strengthen the sacred relationship space’. When you understand le Vā, it means you understand where you come from, who your family and ancestors are, how to think and work, and the importance of service to others. Through service, leadership qualities of kindness, love, and respect are developed and expressed. This understanding empowers and enhances Pasifika people to thrive by working together for the betterment of the collective.

Learning le Vā begins at home with the first ‘teu le Vā’ which is between yourself and your parents, grandparents, and other elders. Then it extends to the relationship space between you and your siblings, and between you and the wider community.

Le Vā informs all partnerships. It is how people know themselves as part of a collective community.

Le folauga – the journey

Talanoa introduces and establishes the understanding of le Vā, which then prepares us for le folauga – the journey we are all on. Le folauga starts in the family and then moves out into the community – your church life, school education, workplace, and more.

The three interwoven concepts of talanoa, le Vā, and le folauga are interdependent. We need to talanoa to learn about le folauga within the context of le Vā.

Respect, love, and kindness

From a Pacific perspective, partnership requires the interconnection of talanoa, le Vā and le folauga; starting with the parents, grandparents, uncles and aunties, siblings, and cousins. Usually this would be first cousins, as most Pasifika parents have their siblings or first cousins living with them or nearby. From there it moves out into the community.

Through talanoa young people learn about their responsibility within le Vā to respect elders and to understand their responsibilities to their family and community. They also learn that it’s the role of elders and older siblings to look after and care for those younger than them through alofa (love), kindness, and through passing on cultural knowledge of how to be a good person within the family and the community.

This way of being informs how partnerships and relationships work within Pacific communities. Starting at home, if young people are taught and cared for in the right way, they move out into the wider community with these same attributes and mindset and their contribution to society is positive.

Watch the video below (3:01) to see a young woman who was brought up with these values in Samoa. She was inspired by her elders to use her cultural skills and talents, and to follow in their footsteps for employment. She migrated to Hawaii and works at the Polynesian Cultural Centre (PCC).¹

Respect shown through customs

Young people who are taught Pacific customs and le Vā understand the lines of respect within their families and communities. They would exercise those customs and show respect not only to people they know, but to all elders and other people they come across. For example, at a church event or funeral these young people know how to do ‘feau’ (chores). They know to remove their shoes before entering a house, and also ‘sulu’ (put on) their ‘ie lavalava’ – wearing Pacific attire known as ‘lavalava’. They may also wear the formal clothing of the ‘puletasi’ for ladies and the ‘ie faitaga’ for men.

Cultural etiquette for the younger generation is to sit on the floor, so as not to be higher than their elders who sit on the chairs. Even if given a chair, they know not to use it if an elder is still sitting. Young people are taught from a young age to know their place; as a guest at a house or event they are taught to be in the kitchen to offer help with doing chores (feau).

It is important for the younger generation to learn these customs and protocols, and most importantly to maintain and uphold them. However, as mentioned earlier, the responsibility for this lies with the parents. Parents and elders are responsible for teaching and passing on this knowledge, they have to teach the young ones the right ways from the beginning. How can a young person know what they need to do if it has not been taught to them?

This is summed up well in the quote below, from a short article written by Ilia Likou.²

Family, obligations, and folauga

If you work with Pacific youth, it is important for you to learn and understand these interwoven connections of talanoa and le Vā, to better understand each young person’s folauga (journey). The collective obligations for Pacific youth are based on lines of respect between elders, older siblings, community members, and their responsibilities to those younger than them.

It is especially important for non-Pacific youth workers who work with Pacific youth to learn and understand the values of Pasifika culture and Pacific kaupapa (ethos, mission, or purpose) if they want effective engagement with youth. Having a more in-depth understanding of the values of Pasifika culture will enable you to see how these values have shaped the mindset and character of the Pasifika youth that you’re working with.

Through talanoa, you can learn about le Vā from the young person’s perspective, and how they relate to their family and community. This wider context will help you to understand their folauga, and how their opportunities and future aspirations may be shaped and enhanced by their family and community relationships and obligations.

The essence of belonging

Remember – Pasifika culture is about the collective. Pasifika families learn to share, connect with others, and work as a team from a young age. It is their natural order in life to think of others. In many non-Pacific cultures, a nuclear family involves you and your immediate family members, your parents and your siblings. The Pasifika mindset of a ‘nuclear’ family extends to grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins, and also the wider community members in the village, and the church.

This concept was beautifully expressed by Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi, when he delivered a keynote address at the New Zealand Families Commission Pasifika Families’ Fono in 2009. Tupua is a former prime minister of Samoa, and one of four paramount chiefs of Samoa. This part of his keynote address was reproduced in a recent article on Talanoa with Pasifika youth and their families (Ioane, 2017)³. Here Tapua explains what belonging means to him:

Task: Passing on cultural knowledge in Aotearoa

Read the article Re-scripting life: New Zealand-born Tongan 'youth-at-risk' narratives of return migration by Adrian Schoone.⁴ In Tonga, passing on cultural knowledge infuses all aspects of life. For example, schools reinforce an understanding of the lines of respect by teaching students how to interact with prefects. They cannot just go up to them. They learn how to approach them as elders within the school community. For young people raised in Aotearoa, in families with Pacific cultural values, respect within the family works in a similar way to how it is taught within the Tongan schools.

After you have read the article, think about these questions:

• What are the implications for young people raised in Tonga who move to Aotearoa?
• What type of tensions, internal and external, might this cause?
• How might learning more about Pacific cultures help non-Pacific educators and youth workers relate better to the young people in their care?

In the quote below from Schoone’s article,⁴ a New Zealand-born Tongan youth, Finau, shares his experience of school rules mirroring Tongan culture.

Respect, family, and community

Knowing Pacific communities enables youth workers to better appreciate the pressures young Pacific people may have that might not apply to their non-Pacific peers. In many Pacific cultures, the eldest child has a responsibility to care for all the siblings and cousins who come after them; not just at home, but also in other places including school. Older siblings have a responsibility to look out for the younger ones and make sure everyone is accounted for; and not just in their own family. Elder siblings raised with Pacific values have a mindset to take it upon themselves to look after all the younger siblings, cousins, and their friends.

As mentioned earlier, Pacific values prioritise a collective mindset. One way you may see this is in how the young people you work with approach food and eating. Kai is communal and shared. If you sit next to them with only a sandwich, and they have all their kai, do they instinctively share with you? Sharing kai and eating together is a great way to approach partnership and lead into talanoa. Offering food shows care and respect. Eating with others shows a desire to form relationships.

Talanoa, le Vā and folauga can be an effective way to frame communication and form connections with young people who were raised with Pacific protocols and values. When they know that you respect and appreciate their cultural mindset, it makes it easier for them to be more open and to connect with you. Talanoa enables this connection to happen in a way that feels familiar and relatable for the young person. You can talanoa about who they are, about their family, and about le Vā.

Even young Pacific people living in Aotearoa who are disconnected from their culture can benefit from an approach based on the concepts of talanoa, le Vā, and folauga.

As a youth worker, you need to understand le Vā between you and the Pacific communities. While le Vā may be the most important, talanoa is how you get there. Whether you work in education, healthcare, youth work or the justice system, make the effort to value this way of working and communicating with Pacific young people and their communities.

In the quotes below, you’ll see comments from Pacific university students that highlight the importance of talanoa and building relationships for their success. These student experiences are shared in a research report on Educational practices that benefit Pacific learners in tertiary education⁵.

Teachers and non-teaching staff who developed respectful and nurturing relationships with students greatly enhanced the students’ learning experience.

One student commented:

As a result, expertise was shared and learning from one another occurred.

Teachers who consistently went out of their way to get to know the students and were approachable were highly regarded by students. Students were more likely to be consistent with the course or programme. Pacific learners placed great value on relationships and specifically stated that strong relationships with staff were prominent in their success.

One student described their teachers as:

Finding a way forward through talanoa

Read the story below about a young man who has been in the justice system for several years. At this time in his life, he’s about to be tried as an adult because he keeps going back to court. He was referred to Pacific youth workers.

Note that the acronym ‘FGC’ in Part 1 refers to a Family Group Conference. These are often facilitated through Oranga Tamariki, and may include police, social workers, family members, and the young person who needs support. Ideally, an FGC brings together the people who are affected by the situation or involved in it, with the aim of supporting the young person to find a better path. However, it’s not an easy process, and there is likely to be some degree of conflict or misunderstanding.

To protect the young man’s privacy, the names of all involved in this short story have been changed. The story is presented in three parts, and it is written from the perspective of the young man, in his voice.

Through talanoa – My life in the system

What can we learn from this story about partnership from a Pacific perspective?

Talanoa enables the youth worker to gain deeper insights for this young man and to help him find a better way. Talanoa foregrounds the gap in his understanding of cultural identity and values. Through talanoa he is able to lower his guard and open up to the youth worker.

For this young man, his foundation at home is unstable and his defensives are up. In the past, promises were made with him and not kept. From the young man’s perspective, his family stopped caring about him and got the police involved to sort him out which he resents and feels angry about.

From the youth worker’s perspective, his family do care about him because they got the police involved. And the system has referred him to a Pacific youth work service. The youth worker sees a young 17-year-old man who is not doing what he is supposed to for himself, his family or his community. The youth worker’s intention is to reintroduce cultural values that remind this young man of who he is and the bloodline that is in him; to realise his responsibilities as a Pacific Island man. Instead of disrespecting his mother and taking money for drugs, what should he be doing?

The youth worker uses talanoa to break it down. To get the young man to talk about his family, the youth worker brings in the question, “What did your parents teach you?”. At first, the young man does not understand. This is not about the hurt and rejection he feels, nor is it about his behaviour as he acts out and throws his emotional pain onto his family.

“What did your parents teach you?”

“No, what did they teach you?”

He has to really think about this. He remembers his mother telling him to look after his younger brother at night because she had to work. He starts to remember all the things his parents and elders told him. He starts to break it down. The youth worker continues talanoa so he can learn about le Vā – the sacred relationship space. Finally, he starts to see it. His family were teaching him le Vā but without talanoa he could not understand. He became overwhelmed as he realised he had lost le Vā between himself and his mother when he swore at her for not giving him money, money she needed for the family.

In this story, the justice system, the Pacific youth worker, the young offender, and his family engage in partnership from a Pacific point of view. The young man learns about himself and starts to engage. He realises for himself how far out of control things have gotten. Importantly, this approach provides him with potential for a more positive folauga going forward.

Engaging in partnership for success

Watch the news story below from Tagata Pasifika⁶ (3:40) to see another example of engaging in partnership with Pacific youth to help them succeed – this time it’s about turning street smarts into book smarts. Pacific Advance Senior School is the first Pasifika High School for years 11-13 in Auckland.

Impact of migration on Pacific youth

The story you read earlier about the young man in the justice system is part of a wider story of Pacific youth and migration to Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s a story that has been going on for decades.

The adjustment of moving to Aotearoa is not easy. Pacific young people especially can feel the strain of adjustment as they or their families move from the islands to live in Aotearoa, with its different cultural priorities and understandings.

Read Julia Ioane’s article, Talanoa with Pasifika youth and their families³ to learn about the different challenges that Pasifika youth are faced with when learning to assimilate into a dual-learning environment and culture.

The extent of their understanding and interpretation of their new world is dependent on the environment they are raised in. Some are taught and raised with traditional Pasifika values (if you’re Samoan you’re brought up ‘the Fa’asamoa way’, Tonga is 'Anga Fakatonga') other youth are brought up in a bi-cultural environment with one parent being Pasifika and the other parent non-Pasifika. The child learns to walk in both worlds as an ‘afakasi’, and then there are youth who are brought up with no Pacific values. All of which can lead to confusion of cultural identity, a folauga of self-discovery. The majority of Pasifika youth who are raised in New Zealand are expected to live in both worlds, but struggle to balance it.

As we learned earlier, parents as the first educators have a responsibility to teach their children as best they can; but there are many different ways to understand this responsibility. Not all parents emphasise talanoa to teach respect and the right way of living. In the islands, most areas of society reinforce cultural values and a Pacific mindset. But what happens when families migrate? Think about the young man in the previous story and how this impacted him.

Watch the video below (6:27) from Tagata Pasifika⁸ to learn more and see how young Pacific students in Aotearoa describe the issues that affect them.

Life after migration

It’s not only the cultural adjustment that brings challenges. Life can be materially tough for many migrants and Pacific families. They may have to prioritise working long hours to pay the bills and put food on the table. Unfortunately, something crucial may be lost in le Vā between parents or grandparents and their young people. For example, older siblings may be told to look after the younger ones, but without talanoa to place this responsibility in its cultural context. The young person may take on the extra responsibility because their parents are working long hours, but miss the part where they fully experience what it means to belong to a collective community with cultural values of responsibility, respect, love and learning. As a consequence, the young person may look elsewhere for a place to find comfort, to speak, and to learn about the world. This may lead to them getting mixed up with the wrong crews at school or work.

Another example of cultural change is that in much of the Pacific region, Sunday has special significance and requires certain community commitments. When working with Pasifika youth, 99% of the time you will find that they attend and belong to a church community. One of the many core aspects to learn is the role that church plays in the lives of Pacific families. Many Pacific peoples are faith-based and the majority of churchgoers go on a Sunday. It is a cherished and sacred day dedicated for families to enhance and uplift their spirituality by attending church.

Most Pacific families do not participate in non-church events on Sundays – no shopping (they’re encouraged to do all food shopping before Sunday), no swimming, no sports or tournaments. This has been challenging for Pacific youth living in New Zealand, as the majority of sporting tournaments for youth tend to be held on Sundays. Legend and former All Black Sir Michael Jones refused to play rugby on Sundays because of his traditional Pasifika upbringing. He had learned to keep Sunday sacred for church and family, yet he is still remembered as one of the greatest players of all time. You can read more about his experiences of keeping Sundays sacred here, in a short article that he wrote in 2015, Michael Jones: 50 years of making Sundays special.⁹

Most Pacific Island nations do not operate or have people working on Sundays. The majority of stores are closed, and only the hospital and police station remains open.¹⁰ Nowadays a few young families have left the traditional ways of honouring Sundays, and they attend events that involve their children or spouse. However, you’ll still find that a majority of the young Pasifika people you’re working with will have family time, and attend church, most Sundays.

Task: Daughters of the migration

Watch the video below (11:42) from The Coconet TV.¹¹ This is an example of alofa (love) and tautua (service) – working with a collective vision and purpose to support their community. The video shares the story of Tuvalu migration pioneers Fala Haulangi and her parents who were amongst the first Tuvaluans to migrate to New Zealand in 1989. They paved the way for all the Tuvalu people who have come after them, and have helped them to settle in Aotearoa.

Fala and her mother are great examples of elders who talanoa and teach their young ones to learn and embrace who they are as Pasifika people. They’ve helped their young people adapt to their new environment with positivity, and work hard to be an asset and valued contributor to society. Fala understands the importance of looking after her people in a new country, and because of her upbringing she understands her purpose. This is the strength of talanoa. Fala’s folauga, even with all its challenges, has proven to be a great gateway for all who have come after her, because she and her family paved the way.

Le folauga – to understand where we are going, we must know where we have been

For a young person to know their folauga, they need to have been taught the mindset of their culture, starting with lessons from their parents and grandparents, and then moving out into the wider community.

In the islands, it is common for grandparents to be the first teachers. Young people raised by their grandparents experience le Vā as respect for their elders. They also learn how to teach others, to pass on their community’s way of being and living. If you meet a Pacific young person who feels like an ‘old soul’ it is likely they were raised by grandparents or people from the older generations.

One consequence of migration to Aotearoa is some loss of understanding of le Vā and how to pass on cultural knowledge. Asking young people about le Vā enables them to talk about worries or problems they may have in their relationships with their parents, siblings or others. Pacific youth workers can use talanoa to help reconnect young people to le Vā.

Young people raised with Pacific values can appreciate a conversation that asks about le Vā, or that asks about le Vā between them and their parents and siblings. Exploring topics from the perspective of le Vā helps many young people to open up and talk more deeply about what is going on for them.

Talanoa, le Vā and folauga are also valuable for young people who weren’t brought up with Pacific values in a Pacific way. These concepts are a useful way to break down, frame, and explore issues and concerns with young people. For example, you can ask them questions like:

• Did you know that your education started with your parents or grandparents as your first teachers? What did you learn from them?
• If the responsibility was put on your parents to teach you, what did they teach you?
• Where did le folauga – the journey – start? Who were your first teachers (before school)? What did you learn from them?
• Who taught your first teachers? What parts of their knowledge got passed on to you?

Task: Reflection questions

We’ve covered a lot of content in this topic. Take a moment now to stop and think about the big picture and draw together what you’ve learnt from the different stories and examples. Think about these questions:

• How does asking questions from a Pacific cultural framework improve a mentoring relationship with young people?
• Why is it so important for those working with Pacific youth to get to know the community and learn about the cultural mindset?
• What does it mean, from the perspective of a Pacific young person, to sense that you understand partnership from a Pacific perspective? 

Journey back from disconnection

Remember the earlier story of the 17-year-old young man? His youth worker also works with adults in prisons and uses a similar approach. For this youth worker, it has been a very humbling experience to witness how through talanoa people can come to the moment of realisation that they have gone too far, and that they have been separated from their culture for too long. They open up and begin to talk about how and why they became so disconnected.

Disconnection is painfully evident in the justice system, but it can show up in any setting, including youth organisations and schools. A Pacific youth worker has shared that when she worked at a school she was told “We are going to give you all the hard basket kids.” Yet, when she talked with these 12-year-old boys, they told her how their fathers and grandfathers went to the same school and were also labelled “the hard basket kids”. Three generations of the same story. Think about how you would handle a situation like this. If you were the youth worker at this school, you might consider the following:

• What do talanoa, le Vā, and folauga mean for these boys?
• Which questions can help to break it down with them?
• Where is the journey for them now?
• What about folauga: what do they want to do? Where do they want to go? 

Task: Activism and speaking up

Watch the video (8:56) here at this link: An original Polynesian Panther meets a young Pacific Advocate | Dawn Raid Apology.¹² In this interview, New Zealand Music Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, Polynesian Panther, political activist, and proud Niuean musician, Tigilau Ness, is interviewed by young Pacific advocate and musician Elijah aka “Church” from “Church & AP”.

At 6:30 minutes into the interview, Church asks the question “Fifty years ago, how hard was it to live with the pressures to assimilate into New Zealand culture?” Tigilau Ness shares his experience of attending Mount Albert Grammar, the same school that Church recently attended. Tigilau talks about the challenges he faced. He was judged and expelled for his refusal to give up his identity. He was determined to wear his natural afro frizzy hair, maintain his island ways, and his culture. This experience led him to join the Polynesian Panthers, a place and community where he could be himself.

The Polynesian Panthers were proud of who they were, even though it was regarded as “militant” to show their culture. Tigilau is in shock when Church shares his experience of attending the same school, where he recalls ‘Polynesian Assemblies’ being held. All the Polynesian kids from Year 9 to Year 13 were called in, and the whole assembly was about them failing and how badly they were doing. Fifty years apart, yet these two men share similar memories and experiences of the same school.

Thinking about this interview:

• Where does the responsibility lie?
• Who is taking responsibility for the actions and choices of those in authority?
• What happens when Pacific young people, Pacific youth workers, and Pacific elders speak up? (think about both positive and challenging outcomes of speaking up)

Struggle for identity in a hostile system  

Pacific young people and youth workers are dealing with a structural context that’s similar to the one discussed in the interview with Polynesian Panther Tigilau Ness.

Young people need space to speak about their struggles within this hostile and dislocating context. It is one thing to say, “I am proud of who I am and my culture.” But how do you do that in a system that does not support you, and that did not support your parents, or perhaps even your grandparents?

Watch the video below (25:04)¹³ to see a special episode from Tagata Pasifika, about Pasifika Identity in Aotearoa. This episode explores how people maintain their Pacific identity in New Zealand. It examines cultural pride, cultural clashes, and the emerging face of young Pasifika generations.

Folauga for Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand cannot be fully appreciated without knowing the historical context. We need to know why we are now at this point. Why Pacific young people and their families may not fully know their culture and have a need to reclaim it.

Even though young people may say things like “it was years ago” or “get over it”, knowing and acknowledging a painful history is necessary to understand the present moment. Pacific peoples in New Zealand still experience injustice and that came from somewhere; it has a history. While we may know that we need to make changes now for a better future, understanding the present injustices requires learning about where they started and what the causes are.

Structural injustice can show up in even the small things. For example, a social worker getting angry with a young man who appears to be texting during a conversation. Yet, the young man has his phone out to take notes. This should be easily resolved, right? But neither the young man nor the Pacific youth worker beside him speak up to tell the social worker what is happening is not okay. And neither does the social worker take a moment to check her assumptions. Not speaking up in the face of injustice has a history. So does making assumptions about the behaviour of Pacific youth by those with structural power in New Zealand. Small moments build up over time to become a structural impediment so ingrained that it feels normal to everyone.

Migration from the Pacific to New Zealand means living in a multi-cultural society. But it is also a society dominated by institutions and a cultural framework founded during colonialism. Pacific peoples have a history in New Zealand that includes being mocked, bullied, disrespected, and looked down on for their ethnicity, culture, language, and way of speaking English. Young people may express anger at “being brown” or get mad about being dark or Pacific. It is not uncommon to hear young people say things like, “I just want to be a Kiwi.” Parents may have been so angry at their own upbringing or experiences that they intentionally do not give their children Pacific names or do not involve their own families with Pacific culture. They may blame the culture for, as they see it, taking away money and time or for the experience of childhood poverty.

Explore further

If you work with Pacific youth, you need to understand the history of migration from the Pacific to Aotearoa New Zealand, as previously discussed in this topic. You need to understand what happened, and its impact on the present. You need to know why the youth worker did not speak up to protect the young person taking notes on his phone, and where the social worker’s attitude came from.

To dismantle an unjust system, you need to know how it was built. For youth workers, educators, justice system workers, and others who want to support Pacific young people from a Pacific perspective, here are some additional references and resources to support you to understand and work more effectively with Pacific youth.

List of resources for those who would like to learn more:

Polynesian Migration to New Zealand¹⁴ a short article from the Polynesian Panthers Party about the history of labour migration from Polynesia.

Untold Pacific History – Episode 1: Dawn Raids.¹⁵ This special episode from The Coconet TV examines the Dawn Raids. These were discriminatory police raids on the homes of Pacific peoples during the early hours of the morning.

Talanoa: Human Rights issues for Pacific People in Aotearoa¹⁶ This is a report from the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, published in 2020. It covers migration, resilience, cultural and spiritual values, demographics, wellbeing and equity for Pacific peoples.

Family – the foundation of Pasifika culture¹⁷ This article from Pasefika Proud shares common sayings and traditional stories, all on the theme of family, from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga and Tuvalu.

Commit to working with community

As a youth worker, you are likely to meet a range of Pacific young people. Each individual, family and community may deal with culture, family migration experiences, and structural injustice in different ways.

If you work with Pacific young people, you can support their journey by learning about it. The young person, their parents, and grandparents, are all part of the story and part of their journey at school, at work, and in the community. But where is it going? Who is benefiting? How can this journey support the young person and help them to achieve the bright future they deserve?

Partnership with Pacific youth means a commitment to whoever you find alongside you in the journey – the young person, their family, and their community. And this includes their past, present and future. While Pacific and non-Pacific youth workers may express partnership in different ways, the commitment required is the same.

Remember, the young people (and their families) also make a commitment to partnership. For example, young people make a commitment to partner with the school they attend – to follow the rules, to learn and participate as best they can. We can mentor young people to commit to this partnership, and we can do it from a place that understands Pacific perspectives.

Task: Putting it all into practice

Think about these questions.

• What would it mean for me to make a commitment to partnership with Pacific youth?
• What would a commitment to partnership look like day-to-day?
• What am I offering to others? What do I have to give? How can I best give back?
• What do I need to learn more about? How can I best obtain this knowledge and understanding?
• What are we doing to normalise stories and role models of Pacific youth doing great things in New Zealand? What are we doing to help change the narratives – within the wider New Zealand society and amongst youth themselves?
• How do we work in partnership with young people who commit and partner with the wrong crew, and who find validation in “being cool” through “bad” behaviour or causing trouble?

Step out of your comfort zone

Partnership may require you to move outside of the networks you usually engage with. The Pacific mindset is a collective, so you cannot work with Pacific young people effectively without engagement with the communities they are part of.

One way to think of this engagement is to see it as building professional communication skills and networks, but perhaps in ways you had not expected. From a Pacific perspective, your network is likely to include Sunday School teachers, church groups and church youth leaders. These are people committed to working with Pacific youth to pass on cultural values and knowledge. They may not be part of a business organisation but are still professional spiritual youth workers within the community.

You could meet with a Sunday School teacher or youth leader of a church that young people you work with attend, and ask them about how they work with young people, ask for advice they may have for you, or how you can work together to best support the young people you both care about.

Expand who you think of as part of your professional network. Consider adding a local family into your network. Families with a lot of siblings and cousins are likely to spend time together every Sunday. Many generations of the family will gather, and these are good events for you to attend. This is where the young people you work with learn what it means to be who they are. This is where you could learn about the different Pacific cultures in Aotearoa. Attending White Sunday at a local church with a family once a year can help you to appreciate the pressures and responsibilities young people may have at this time. Or for the Tongan community in May, with Mother’s Day, Children’s Day, and Father’s Day.

In the quote below, Landy Nonoa explains this further. You may see some similarities here with the earlier comments about Sir Michael Jones, and the way that he prioritised spending time with his family on Sundays. Landy Nonoa is a Youth Mentor and Founder of the Tu Malosi Programme – a Youth Mentoring service for Talents of the Pacific Academy.

Acknowledgement

We appreciate and thank Landy Nonoa, Director of Talents of the Pacific Academy, for her insights and experiences used in the preparation of this topic and its associated assessment tasks.

Make notes as you think about these questions as it will help you to answer the assessment questions in Assessment 3.3 Task 2 for this Module.

How would you define partnership from a Pacific perspective? Can you relate it to:

• the three concepts of talanoa, le Vā and folauga
• collective community and family – ways of being and living
• experiences of migration and the history of Pacific people in Aotearoa New Zealand
• commitment and working with Pacific youth

Think about the organisation, business or institution you work for and your own role and practice:

• How do you all work with Pacific young people?
• What are some things you do in partnership with Pacific youth and their communities? Or to build better relationships? Or to develop cultural knowledge?
• When do young Pacific people respond well or benefit from your practice or your organisation’s service? What makes the difference and why? What can you learn from these positive experiences?
• What are the positives of using a Pacific approach to youth work? Who benefits? How do they benefit?
• What do you find challenging about working with Pacific youth? These may be personal or organisational challenges. These could involve your own emotional responses – what leaves you feeling frustrated, challenged, uncomfortable, uncertain, or angry. And how you deal with that. These could be related to conflicts of interest, relationships, working within systems, cultural conflicts, or misunderstandings.
• What do you do about these challenges? Which responses are most effective?

You are now ready for Task 2 of Assessment 3.3.

For Task 3 of Assessment 3.3, you are asked to start to or to continue building networks for working in partnership with either Māori or Pacific youth. If you would like to explore the Pacific option for your assessment, you may like to think about Pacific people currently in your professional and personal networks who work with youth. As part of your assessment, you have the option to start or to continue building these networks through a conversation.

• Who is someone new you could meet with and talk with? Who could introduce you to this person? If you asked one of the young people you worked with or a Pacific colleague, who do they recommend?
• How do they recommend you approach contacting and setting up a meeting with this person? How do they recommend you go about asking this person to help you with your assessment task?

You are now ready for Task 3 (Pacific option) of Assessment 3.3.