Faakalofa lahi atu, on Wednesday 26th November, Ralph Alapati 10MA, Sei Mafi 10TS, Toakase Mahe 10MA, Katherine Qalo 10MA, Leila Richards-Marsters 10HP, Cha’ris Tolova’a 10SE, Siena Vaaga 10MA and myself Zaria Mincham 10SE attended the Year 10 Pacific Island Leaders Of Tomorrow (PILOT) held at Unitech, Mt Albert Campus.

The PILOT programme taught me a lot of things. This programme was created to support Pacific Islander communities and help them embrace and take pride in their cultural roots. The programme itself was super fun and was most definitely interesting. The programme topic was identity. We did 3 workshops which consisted of Identity, Sweet Vibes, and Tapa.

Identity had  covered the fact of stereotypes and why we are proud to have Pacific blood in us and some questions one of which being “Islanders are naturally good at sports and not good at academics” with that question we had to have a discussion with a group, these groups had many different schools allowing us students to create a new friendship and to have a community where us students will get along, when we all were in groups we had note pads to write about the questions, the answers were all valid as we all disagreed and said it depends on what u want to do and if you put your mind to it, this question relates to all people who have pacific blood in them, it is always your choice to chose if u want to be good academically or athletically or even both.

The second workshop we did was Sweet Vibes. In this workshop we talked about “kahoa lole”, where, what, and why they are made. Kahoa lole are usually seen being given to Pacific Islanders when celebrating and achieving something in life, these can be seen at graduations, weddings, prize givings, birthdays and more. It is a simple gift but means alot, it is very common to see and it is very easy to make. To make these you can use your home resources like glad wrap, ribbon, scissors, and lollies. 

The last workshop we did was Tapa, this was an amazing topic to learn as I learnt the background of it and what it can be used for, mats, clothing and more. It is a very common thing to see when doing traditional dances. We watched a video of what it is made of and how it is made,from tree bark (very thin) and the brush to paint patterns on the Tapa  can be made from Paogo (pandanus seed) . It is a traditional way to make tapas.

Overall the day out to unitech for the PILOT programme was a great fun experience for all students to have and learn more about their cultures. I personally loved this experience. 

Fakaaue lahi ‘Thank you in Niuean’ to everyone for making it a great day and Mr Talamaivao for organising us. 

Zaria Mincham 10SE