After 36 years of dedicated community service, the Ōamaru Pacific Island Community Group (OPICG) held an official opening ceremony for its new Pacific Community Hub in Ōamaru at the weekend.

The Saturday (December 9) event was a proud celebration of its achievements, first as a shining beacon of support for Pasifika peoples and more latterly becoming one of Waitaki’s most essential frontline community service providers. 

OPICG President, Maiele Paia thanked the many dignitaries and special guests “for being here with us today to celebrate a huge milestone”. 

“This has been a major journey," she said.

Over the next hour or so, as dignitaries took turns to speak to a packed assembly, even the word “major” began to feel too small for the story of OPICG. 

It is a story of indomitable will and willingness. 

It is a story of love and brutal responsibility.

It’s a story that celebrates the collective efforts to preserve the values and cultural mores of Pasifika homelands, and by sheer force of generosity use them to create a better community for all of us, here.

OPICG general manager and Waitaki District deputy mayor Hana Halalele told the crowd the story began back in 1986, when two local Pasifika women, Tima Darling and Toeafiafi Taiti (Hana's Mum), established the Ōamaru Pacific Island Community Group under the umbrella of the Ōamaru PACIFICA Women's Branch.

"In the mid 1980s, there were only a few Pacific families living here. Today Waitaki has one of the largest and fastest growing populations of Pacific people per capita, outside of Auckland," Hana reminded us.

“OPICG is embedded as part of my life story and my journey, about how a small band of Pasifika families bonded together to ensure our wellbeing and the wellbeing of the wider Ōamaru community.”

She spoke of the “feelings of warmth, of belongingness, of connectedness, of love, cultural safety and security” she gained from OPICG as a young person, as well as the responsibilities.

From left to right, Mayor Gary Kircher, Right Rev Rose Luxford, Rev Lakepa Finau and Deputy Mayor Hana Halalele addressing the assembly. Photo: Fiona Hunter

Part of the organisation’s activities included attending national and South Island Pasifika conferences and council meetings in Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill, she said.

“And when Mum and other members weren't able to attend, they would send their eldest daughters to go on their behalf. 

“Not only that, when we would get there, we would have to stand and speak at these meetings to represent our mothers and our branch. Sometimes there were over 100 people registered and I was 10, 11 years old.”  

Tima and Toeafiafi expected even more from their families.

“As kids, we were often invited to perform at events and in spaces where people had very little prior experience and knowledge of Pasifika culture," Hana continued.

“It often felt like we were under a microscope. Our performances were probably exotic to a provincial community back then. Of course, Mum and her friends called it character building.”

“What I didn't understand at the time is that our mothers were preparing us for the future.”

"The Cultural Group" as OPICG affectionately became known, provided an essential means for families in the area to maintain their cultural heritage and language.

“It was the anchor for many Pacific families moving to Ōamaru during those years,” Hana said.

The cultural group still runs on Friday nights and after 36 years, some of the original families’ second and third generations are involved and they continue to perform across Waitaki and host the annual social night. 

“Pasifika and the OPICG marked a shift in our community's approaches to action," Hana told the assembly.

“We [were] encouraged to use our culture to bring the community together and to grow cultural understanding.

Observing the Fijian Kava ceremony. Photo: Fiona Hunter

“Our Pasifika values of love, of service and respect are protective factors for us to maintain our community wellbeing.”

“They were the auala, or the pathways, where Pacific women learnt the value of networking, of connecting into the wider local and national systems available and how to access resources, so they can carry out the community activities that they believed were important. 

Those values, those auala, gave OPICG the means to deliver testing, vaccinations, food parcels and many other forms of support throughout Waitaki during the Covid-19 pandemic - for Pasifika and Palangi alike.

The crowd heard how extraordinary leadership comes from strong foundations, as attending dignitaries spoke. 

They spoke of faith and they spoke of growth and they spoke to grit… and they each did it with humour and manifest respect for what OPICG has achieved.

Rev Rose Luxford, of Ōamaru's St Paul’s Presbyterian Church, and current moderator of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, reflected on her 14-year association with OPICG.

“This group has grown out of a vision of the early Pasifika women who came to Ōamaru and wanted to gather and nurture their culture and get together as people of faith," she said.

“The foundations of this organisation came through our faith commitment to Jesus Christ and the call to build community, to heal the broken, to welcome the stranger and to care for others.”

Waitaki District Mayor Gary Kircher described OPICG’s beginnings as a group to bring together Pacific Island people, create community and celebrate culture where “every now and then the rest of us would get a bit of a glimpse of just how special the community was”.

He commended the OPICG’s growing importance, influence and impact in our community.

“The leadership shown by the Ōamaru Pacific Island Community Group, the people involved in that, Hana, Maiele, the committee, the staff in leading the Covid response, looking after our [wider] community, leading vaccinations at a time where it was very difficult to know what was happening. I just really thank them for that.”

Hon Aupito William Sio, former Minister for Pacific Peoples of New Zealand, acknowledged “Hana Halalele, for your leadership, and Maiele Paia".

"Thank you both.

"Not to say they are the only ones here. There are many behind the scenes.”

“The fact that Hana Halalele is also the deputy mayor of Waitaki District shows your commitment and support to her and the people that are around her, but also the dreams and aspirations of a thriving community that is an integral part of this economy.”

He spoke of the recently launched book Shaping Pacific Place in Aotearoa New Zealand - Ua alu atu le afi, edited by Tagaloatele Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop & Amanda-Lunuola Dunlop, which contains a chapter written by Hana.

“I thought it’s beautiful because we often get involved in communities, there’s stories of Pacific people, of Māori… but we don’t record our history well.

“So, Ōamaru is now on the map for Pacific communities. Waitaki District is actually on the map of that history, for shaping Pacific Aotearoa, and it’s historic.”

Hana said she attended her first workshop at those Pasifika Conferences.  

“Topics included building capability, supporting our families, retaining Pasifika identity, and unity, alongside discussions about political reforms taking place that mattered to these members.

“Pasifika women were activists, they were feminists and they were awesome role models for young, impressionable women like we were.  

“Pasifika set the foundation for everything that Mum and her group of friends had aspired to and did.”

During the Covid response, OPICG helped to vaccinate 20% of the Waitaki population in collaboration with Te Kaika, Wellsouth, Southern District Health Board, Ministry of Health, Tu Mai Ora, Multicultural Council, Waitaki District Council and Stronger Waitaki, running numerous vaccination clinics and drive-throughs throughout the district.

Not only were they able to facilitate the training of health workers, two of those are now on their way to nursing school.

OPICG's powerful response is the subject of a newly minted and highly engaging documentary, previewed by the audience at the opening ceremony. It is scheduled for public release in 2024.

The work of the OPICG continues through its community connectors, the Tupu Aotearoa programme, the Pacific Community Health Link Support Service, ongoing vaccination programmes, Talanga a Waitaki Talanoa Ako programme, smoking cessation, Tu'u Malohi programme and numerous community projects.

Panels detailing the work of OPICG since its inception in the 1980s and how it evolved over time. Photo: Cara Tipping Smith

“When my family moved here, they had a dream," Hana said. "And today is just a really special occasion and I am so humbled on behalf of our team, our amazing community practitioners, our cultural bearers who are our kaumatua, our volunteers, our educators, our health workers, our advocators and our community hustlers.”

“I just want to acknowledge our mothers who are at the heart of this journey. Especially my mum Toeafiafi, and Tima.

“And by doing things our way, we've future-proofed our generation for the opportunities that we have today.”

The new Pacific Community Hub is at 22-26 Ribble Street, Ōamaru. Open Monday to Friday, 9-5pm. It is proudly a place to “nourish our people, places and communities” throughout the Waitaki.

OPICG acknowledge the support of the following people and organisations:

• Past stewards and committee members - the Oakes, Havea, Fariu, Kaufana, Perkins, Sasagi and Tahaafe families, and current committee of Maiele, Isabelle, Shannon and Sione, Toeafiafi, Tina, and Apolosa.
• The operational team: Silou, Mafa, Jane, Alesi, Mele, Sophia, and the Talanoa Ako team
• Culture Group members and families and those who took part in the day celebrations, the Cook Island drummers and string band, the Fijian community performing a kava ceremony, and the Health Quality and Safety Commission team.
• Special thanks also goes to Hon Aupito William Sio, Mayor Gary Kircher, the Right Rev Rose Luxford, Rev Lakepa Finau, Lemalu Silao Vaisola- Sefo, representatives from Crown Ministries, Pacific community providers from across the country and local community members.