Join the club & welcome
Kia ora, talofa lava and welcome to pasifikasocial.club
“Living in two worlds is the story of my life. I’m used to balancing different aspects of both myself and the world around me”.
First of all, this is not a club - more of a community but I’d already bought the website address and it was a little too late to change it. I just loved the idea of social (enterprise) club and the memories I have of attending the many family socials and suppers I’d had growing up.
Back in 2021, during another COVID lockdown, I started studying again. It had been 20+ years since I’d been in a formal learning environment and I loved it. Now in 2024, I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my Masters of Change and Organisational Resilience at academyEX. My topic was ‘how do we strengthen the pacific business ecosystem to support the next generation of pasifika social entrepreneurs?’
My research came to a number of conclusions and one of them was about awareness, culture and new narratives of pacific entrepreneurship. We need more stories of success and people doing well in business. They need to reach our young people. We need to demonstrate how business can help support our family and community goals when you have the right mindset, people and resources to help you. Don’t get me wrong - business is hard but I’m afraid Aotearoa New Zealand isn’t making it any easier and we need to change that.
And this is the reason I started pasifikasocial.club - to help spread the word that we are all entrepreneurs, especially for pasifika. As Professor Muhammad Yunus once said:
“All human beings are entrepreneurs. When we were in the caves, we were all self-employed - finding food, feeding ourselves. That’s where human history began. As civilisation came, we suppressed it. We became labour… we forgot that we are entrepreneurs”.
This is an open invitation to everyone who shares the vision that we need to foster an environment where the path to self-employment for Pasifika is well-lit for all to see.
At the same time I was researching this topic, I also came to realise that I need to write my own story and start my own business. I decided it was going to be a social enterprise - one that increases positive impact through consulting, with the profits coming back to support pasifikasocial.club and more Pacific businesses. The model of social enterprise speaks to my two ways of being as both Pasifika and European; living in two worlds is the story of my life - I’m used to balancing different aspects of both myself and the world around me.
So, Honor Impact was born at the same time pasifikasocial.club was too - two sides of a whole but all with the same clarity of purpose for more positive change. This is only a seed and I hope to join many others in this journey towards a strong ecosystem supporting pasifika in business.
O lupe sa vao ese’ese, ae ua fuifui faatasi - We are from different parts of the forest but connected in one cause.
