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After a "quite shaky" upbringing, Kayla Schwalger moved through her own teenage mental health struggles by reconnecting with her Samoan heritage.
Now the 23-year-old is empowering other Pacific youth to do the same via the charitable organisation Tapasā.
Kayla Schwalger is one of 25 young New Zealand trailblazers and changemakers in this year's Y25 programme.
As a child growing up in Aotearoa, Schwalger tells Jesse Mulligan she felt quite disconnected from traditional Samoan culture where "the village" raises young people and imparts a sense of identity.
"You have the support system. You have these values embedded in you when you're young. I think with that connection, when it's strong, you're able to ground yourself in who you are."
For her high school years and first year of university, Schwalger lived in Samoa where, in the absence of support services, her mental health declined.
At 20, back in New Zealand studying at AUT, she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
"Being able to get that diagnosis really helped give me validation … I was able to be in a space where I felt safe enough to reflect and work on my healing and wellbeing."
Through that process, Schwalger says it became clear to her that connection to island culture was essential for the general health of young people like her.
She co-founded Tapasā - which loosely translates as 'navigation compass' in Samoan - with her "amazing" mum who also has personal experience of mental health struggles and domestic violence,
'My mom's like my superhero. We do everything together, and we founded it to really uplift our youth, to see culture as their superpower and reconnect back there."
Many kids with Pacific heritage growing up in Aotearoa try to assimilate into Kiwi society and can be uncertain about going "all in" with their island culture, Schwalger says.
Yet when these young people don't feel a connection to their heritage, she says, they can too easily go down the wrong avenues to try and find support, she says.
Today, though, many PI kids being raised in New Zealand have a "massive desire" to better understand themselves via their cultural heritage, Schwalger says.
Social media can be a great tool for this, and her 38,000-word Masters in Communications thesis on navigating mental health in the digital age reveals its potential.
"One of the biggest findings I had in my thesis was that youth are able to come together on social media and see [Pacific Island culture] as a positive thing.
"Evidence shows that it's [also] shifting the mental health stigma in Samoa which is quite cool."
Tapasā also focuses on the transformative power of generational change.
"We really want our oldies to give their knowledge of culture, in a way that suits them, to us now - for the present and for youth in the future to be absolutely strong in their culture, absolutely strong with that connection."
