Samoan-New Zealand academic Fa'afetai Sopoaga is on a mission to encourage young Pacific people to see cultural challenges as opportunities, not barriers.
Faumuina Professor Fa'afetai Sopoaga Photo: University of Otago
'There's a quote by this preacher Chuck Swindoll that I really like holding on to - We are surrounded by a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."
Professor Sopoaga was recently made a Companion of the NZ Order of Merit for her efforts to improve Pacific health and encourage more young Pacific people into tertiary education.
Professor Sopoaga grew up in a small village in Samoa and after finishing Samoa College went to study medicine at Otago University on a scholarship.
The move to Dunedin was an adjustment both culturally and weather-wise, she says, but what she has learnt about adjusting herself to different cultural contexts helps with her new role as a NZ Health Advisor for Samoa.
"I was brought up in a certain way where you know your place in society and you only speak when you're asked, whereas I found in my medical training that you had to actually speak up… and articulate my thoughts and my thinking in the class.
"I had to learn to adjust to a new cultural context to be able to progress my training… but then had to fit back into Samoan community and cultural context."
Each young Pacific person, New Zealand born or not, has a specific cultural mix and lens on the world they can use to help strengthen the Pacific community as a whole, she says.
Professor Sopoaga encourages Pacific people to see cultural challenges as opportunities and also look beyond Pacific circles to engage with all ethnic groups in New Zealand.
"We're all in this waka together."
Faumuina Professor Fa'afetai Sopoaga is the first Pacific female medical doctor to be appointed as a professor in both Australia and New Zealand.
