Pasifika hub now open

Oamaru’s Pacific community now has a one-stop-shop for all its needs.

The Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group office in Ribble St was opened on Saturday.

About a hundred people gathered for the event, which featured music, a blessing and a kava ceremony.

The new facility will serve as a central hub for Pasifika community needs and events.

General manager Hana Halalele said the group needed a larger dedicated space to "meet the complex demands of our community".

It used to function out of St Paul’s Presbyterian Church, but as the group grew so did the services it provided.

"We were running out of space."

It was providing social services, health, education, career programs and more out of the church.

Those services were provided with funding from larger agencies, such as Te Whatu Ora.

Those funds helped make the new office a reality, she said.

Former minister for Pacific peoples Hon Aupito William Sio said the office was a huge benefit to the community.

There were many Pacific people who were not quite sure where to go for healthcare, advice with schooling, early childhood education, housing and other issues.

"This is the hub."

Pacific people were answering the call for workers in Oamaru, particularly among the two freezing works in town.

Those people brought their families and had special community needs, but most towns and cities were not designed to facilitate those.

Now they had a place they could go when they needed help and wanted to engage with their community.

It also encouraged those people to seek help, as it gave them a comfortable way to seek healthcare from somebody who looked like them and spoke their language.

He had seen similar offices set up in other places and a key factor in their success was how well-supported they were by local and central government.

It was great to see the Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group working "really closely" with the Waitaki District Council, the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Pacific Peoples as well as the local health system.

It was not just a benefit for Pasifika people, but the whole town.

"When the communities thrive, our nation thrives."

South Seas chief executive Lemalu Vaisola said the community in Oamaru was in need of a place to connect.

Pacific people here had a growing number of health issues, reaching similar statistics to those of Auckland and Wellington.

Pasifika tended to go through services dedicated to them, so the new hub would help deliver better health results for them.

"This is a huge milestone for this community."