"Samoans delivering to Samoans makes sense."
Family violence and harm are harsh realities for Fusi Mareko, a Kaimahi Family Resilience worker at The Fono, a Pacific health service in Auckland. Fusi (pictured above left) helps run an 18-week non-violence programme for Samoan men based on Nga Vaka o Kāiga Tapu’s Samoan cultural framework ‘O Le Tōfā Mamao’.
After attending Nga Vaka’s Samoan training programme, Fusi applied what she’d learned in her work with families dealing with violence. This included the ‘soli (violated), teu (restored) and tausi (nurtured)’ concepts.
Acts of violence are the dangerous violations of vā tapuia or sacred relationships. The term, ua soli le vā tapuia describes the trampling of sacred space. Restoration and healing brings people back to the continuum of wellbeing.
Delivered in Samoa to men who have perpetrated violence, Fusi says the Tōfā Mamao ‘soli, teu, and tausi’ concept clicked with the men who attended in ways the ‘wheel of power and control’ couldn’t.
“When we talked about the cycle of violence and the power and control wheel, we applied the concept of teu, soli and tausi,” explains Fusi.
“In our group talanoa, it made sense for the men to understand that when they’re violent and use abuse in the home, they soli the vā between themselves and their children. Or them and their wives and partners, or another family member or even strangers.”
When trying to explain the issue of violence and abuse to the men, the majority of whom are court mandated to attend, Fusi found explaining the concept of vā made the most impact in terms of raising their awareness.
“When they understood it from their cultural perspective it made their awareness so much deeper that they were able to reflect.”
“They won’t come back to the next session saying they’ve made huge changes. But sometimes they come back and say they’ve thought a lot about it and were trying to do something just to make some changes.”
Fusi and her team continue to encourage these small but productive steps towards change.
“We weren’t looking at humongous leaps to change and transformation – but small moves.”
Understanding it from a cultural perspective was a huge driver of change.
“Samoans delivering to Samoans, speaking your own language and understanding your own cultural concept makes a whole lot of sense. It makes it a whole lot easier to connect with participants in the group as well as individual clients that we work with and their families.”
To create meaningful change, Fusi knows it takes effort to overcome challenges.
“When people can connect the concepts with their own understanding of who they are, where they’ve come from and their tupuaga (history), then it makes more sense for them to work towards change.”
“They also get to understand fa’aaloalo a lot more as well – those values that underpin Tōfā Mamao.”