Fijian and Tokelauan workers from Northland and Wellington were part of this Northpower crew at the company's Dargaville depot after another long weekend workday getting power back on around Kaipara. Photo / Susan Botting
Fijian and Tokelauan workers from Northland and Wellington were part of this Northpower crew at the company's Dargaville depot after another long weekend workday getting power back on around Kaipara. Photo / Susan Botting
Fifteen thousand people are expected at Northland’s biggest Pasifika festival next month, in spite of Cyclone Gabrielle hitting the community hard.
Organisers of the Northland Pasifika Fusion festival in Whangārei on March 4 will be pulling out all the stops to make sure the region’s biggest event of its type happens – for the first time in three years.
The usually annual festival was last held in February 2020, just before New Zealand’s first Covid-19 lockdown. Cyclone Gabrielle brought a moment of doubt as to whether the festival would happen this year when it hit just three weeks out from the event date.
“We’re determined it’s going to happen. We’re going to pull out all the stops. We want to go ahead to give people something to look forward to,” Fale Pasifika Te Tai Tokerau manager Johnny Kumitau said.
Northland’s 14,000-strong Pasifika population is spread around the region, concentrated in Whangārei and stretching as far north as Te Hāpua near Cape Reinga, with significant populations in Kerikeri, Ōkaihau, Kaitāia and wider Te Hiku, Kaikohe and Dargaville. Northland Pasifika people include those from Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Kiribati and Vanuatu.
Fale Pasifika Te Tai Tokerau manager Johnny Kumitau.
About 250 recognised seasonal employer (RSE) workers are concentrated in Kerikeri and Dargaville and are mainly from Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji and Kiribati.
Kumitau said his people in Northland had been significantly impacted by the cyclone, exacerbating the already-vulnerable Pasifika community’s situation.
He said Fale Pasifika Te Tai Tokerau had supported the Pasifika community, along with others. Part of that support was getting them in touch with available funding, including from the Ministry of Social Development and Whanau Ora commissioning agency Pasifika Futures.
Their biggest challenge was dealing with the after-effects of having no power, particularly those who were in remote rural areas.
He said replacing the contents of freezers was a significant expense for many.
Kumitau said Pasifika people experienced many cyclones in their home countries.
But doing so in New Zealand was less distressing, as there were well-established information systems notifying people ahead of the cyclone’s arrival, an active emergency response and systems in place to support people before, during and after a cyclone.
“We all knew Cyclone Gabrielle was coming, so we had time to prepare,” Kumitau said.
He said Pasifika people in their countries of origin look to natural signs for warnings of the potential arrival of a cyclone.
Frigate birds materialise ahead of a storm - usually, the more birds, the bigger the storm. They can respond to low-pressure systems as far as 300 kilometres away.
Kumitau who is Niuean, has been in New Zealand for about 20 years. He has been through regular cyclones in his country of origin, including bigger ones than Cyclone Gabrielle.
Flooding caused by Cyclone Gabrielle ruined kumara crops and turned pasture land brown on this property near Dargaville, where a crew of RSE workers from Vanuatu work. Photo / Susan Botting
He said the first ways people in their countries of origin might become aware of an impending cyclone was the changed behaviour of birds, dogs barking and palm trees beginning to thrash about.
Pasifika people, including some from Fiji, have been part of Northpower teams getting the power back on in Kaipara’s Cyclone Gabrielle recovery.
