Island Breeze

Crafts, Culture and Connecting

Maliu mai! Lako mai! Fai mai!

Island Breeze is a community programme bringing Pasifika families together for a time of fellowship, creativity, and cultural celebration. Our weekly sessions are filled with traditional crafting, singing, and storytelling, and offer a space to connect, share, and uplift one another.

In addition to our local Island Breeze sessions that run every Tuesday at Knox Hall, Island Breeze also runs every third Thursday of the month in Ashburton at the Ashburton Art Gallery.

These special sessions are child-friendly and provide a fantastic opportunity for our Pasifika families in Hakatere to celebrate their heritage and strengthen community ties.

Whether you're looking to learn traditional crafts, enjoy good company, or simply reconnect with your roots, Island Breeze is the perfect place to feel at home.

Meet the team

Vaili'a Afoa

Vaili'a is one of our Community Health Support Workers. In this role, Vaili'a helps clients with their health and social service appointments, this might include translating for our Samoan clients and providing transport to GP, hospital, dentist and WINZ appointments. She says, “I'm passionate about the health of our community and I look forward to helping our matua each day."

Fifita Satui

Fifita is one of our Pacific Outreach Navigators, based in our Ashburton office. A major part of her is based on connecting our Pasifika community members to health and social organisations for the betterment of health outcomes. As part of this, she facilitates our Island Breeze sessions that run monthly in Ashburton.