Samoan language week celebrations ...

Pre-launch flyer at Otara Library for Samoan language week

Malo le soifua ma le lagi e mama i lenei vaiaso faapitoa mo le gagana Samoa i Aukilani, Niu Sila. (Blessings in living and the heavens be clear in this important week for the Samoan language).

It has been a very busy week this week with Birthdays and also in supporting our annual Samoan language week celebrations.

So much so, that we have supported our early morning karakia (prayers) at Te Wananga o Aotearoa this week with the theme of Samoan language week whereby a team hosts the karakia with team members saying the greetings in Samoa as we support in singing pese (songs) and hymns in Samoa

As well as wearing Samoan patterned pea (top and or long wrapped skirt), ie faitaga (formal men's skirt attire), lavalava and other Samoan accessories.

This week, my beloved and I have been blessed with the privilege of visiting schools such as Robertson Road school, in Mangere, in their mainstream and bilingual units with pre-launch readings of our new book in both the Samoan language and in English.

It's always such a privilege to be able to share our stories and to discuss the ideas behind the story but also to answer questions from students and interact with our next generational leaders in our communities and families.

A big thanks also to Leota Alice, who is an amazing Samoan librarian with a Pasifika portfolio who invited us to visit Mayfield school in Otara with a Pasifika library team including Hana (Samoan librarian extraordinaire) and Henz (supreme Maori guitar man) and we were able to share with those children about the 100 years commemoration of this sad event in Samoa's history but also how it became the impetus for Samoa to become the first Pacific to be independent in 1962.

Now also looking forward to launching the book tomorrow, that although it is a very sad story about the incompetence of the New Zealand administrators at the time, we are now able to enjoy the independence that our forefathers fought for in recognizing the atrocities that occurred because of one ship that was allowed to dock in three different Harbours in: Fiji, Western Samoa (as it was known at the time) and Tonga.

At all of these islands, thousands of people died but Western Samoa suffered the most losses in the world per capita with Fiji and Tonga numbering in the thousands but this information has not been easily shared in our histories.

And so this is why we do what we do, in sharing and shaping the minds of our leaders of today and informing our leaders in schools, for tomorrow. Lest we forget. Ia manuia ma ia soifua.(Blessings and farewell).