Winners of Pacific youth leadership awards transform 'negative emotions into action'

December 15, 2020

Aigagalefili Fepulea'i-Tapua'i, Leki Jackson-Bourke and Dr Brittany Stanley-Wishart have been recognised by the Pacific Cooperation Foundation.

They've gone from "places of hurt" to national recognition.

Three remarkable young New Zealanders stamping their mark on Aotearoa have been announced as winners of the inaugural PCF, or Pacific Cooperation Foundation, youth leadership awards for their outstanding services in their communities.

Youth activist Aigagalefili Fepulea'i-Tapua'i has been named as winner of the supreme award for Pacific youth advocacy, award-winning playwright Leki Jackson-Bourke is the winner of the young male of influence award, and Dr Brittany Stanley-Wishart is the winner of the Pasifika health ambassador award.

On TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning, Jackson-Bourke said he loved performing arts because he could push the boundaries, getting away with saying things he otherwise wouldn't be able to.

"A lot of the work that I do comes from a place of hurt, it comes from feeling oppressed in a system that doesn't support me and so a lot of that work is around the revitalisation and the maintenance of our indigenous languages and using performing arts to make it accessible to young people and to older people as well," he said.

Stanley-Wishart, who is specialising in psychiatry and has a passion in mental health, added, "I see the hurt in a lot of Pacific people, I see the hurt in a lot of the Māori population and it's not just from their lifetime, it's from the generations before them too and all of that is impacting on them too."

However, Fepulea'i-Tapua'i said that "transforming those negative emotions into action and into hope and into faith, that's the bigger, more important part of it".

She said the awards were "a beautiful platform" to celebrate Pasifika and their diversity.

"I think it's really important to acknowledge that even though all of us are very grateful to receive awards and to be recognised, we're also very aware of the fact that it's not just us out here doing the work, it's generations of giants whose shoulders we stand on."

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