The Nelson Tasman Pasifika Community Trust is an organisation that aims to enhance its Pasifika presence, with a mission to provide, support and strengthen their community to grow, achieve and prosper.

The growth of the Pacific population in Nelson has challenged the Trust to represent the needs of their community by providing education and health programmes while also helping families to reach their goals around home ownership.

General Manager for the Trust, Robert Blake, is passionate about the success of the Pasifika community in Nelson, especially around home ownership.

“A lot of our families work so hard; they have the deposit for home ownership collectively. It's just about getting them sorted with the right avenues such as banks, grants, brokers and providing educational literacy so that our families are set up on the right pathway.”

Blake emphasises that although the workforce is smaller compared to others, there is still a high demand for support. 

“We have one Nurse who travels alongside our Navigator and together they are probably visiting around three to four families a day; we aim to provide quality service. 

Their role is to discuss avenues and identify the needs for our Pacific families and also doing health checks. We are finding that cardiovascular health is a huge issue here in Nelson as well as low wages and lack of housing for our Pacific seasonal workers.”

Blake reiterates that it is important the Trust exists in order to serve Pacific families; the need heavily emphasised during the Covid-19 pandemic. He says Pacific families suffered the most and he was grateful for PFL’s support during that time.

“Pasifika people were the largest community affected by Covid-19 and the Pasifika Futures team flew out and offered support by providing us with the necessary resources. No other organisation would’ve helped us like that; they responded with urgency came immediately.

Pasifika Futures supports the work that we do and without their help, our people would continue to struggle. They help mitigate the barriers our people face, not just with Covid-19, but they also respond during crises such as floods when our community is in need of food and other resources.”

Blake says he looks forward to seeing the organisation grow and the Trust continues to make the well-being of their community a priority. He expressed his gratitude for the immediate and long term support they have received from PFL and he is thankful the partnership allows them to carry out their work to meet the needs of Pacific families.