In between, she's organising workshops to empower refugee and migrant women as the founder of Our Stories on Plate, an initiative to address the realities of displacement through community connections. Read more

Known as the "Kiribati Commitment", the programme aims to provide young teachers in the Port Pirie Diocese with an opportunity to live and work alongside the Good Samaritan Sisters in Kiribati and to be immersed in broader community life.

Brenda Keenan, Director of Catholic Education in the Port Pirie Diocese, who has been instrumental in making the "Kiribati Commitment" a reality, said the emphasis is on mutual learning and enrichment for all involved.

She described this year's inaugural outreach experience to the village of Abaokoro, where a community of three i-Kiribati sisters run the Good Samaritan Early Learning Childhood Centre, as "an outstanding success".

"From the outset I knew that it was going to be very good, but my expectations were met one-hundred-times-fold - and I had extremely high expectations," she said.

"The outreach experience, on so many different levels, was fantastic."

The 12 teachers all conveyed similar sentiments.

Keenan said the Kiribati outreach program will continue to evolve over the coming years.

"There will be future and ongoing opportunities for staff from across our diocesan schools to travel and witness this amazing Pacific country and its people, and there will be opportunities for the i-Kiribati Good Samaritan Sisters to visit our diocese and schools,"
she said.

"Our partnership is two-ways (both ways), as we continue to cultivate and grow our cross-cultural learnings, friendships and understandings."

Source

• goodsams.org.au
• Image: goodsams.org.au

Each year hundreds of mainly Pasifika families are putting their trust in the wrong people and it was costing them dearly, an immigration lawyer says.

Richard Small's comments come after a Tongan family he represented won a last-ditch appeal to stay in the country.

"They don't know that they have lost their residency, as this family did, through unfair circumstances.

"It has been very difficult to get Immigration New Zealand to recognise immigration fraud, and they've done it very reluctantly after years of struggle."

Viliami and Limiteti Talamai came to New Zealand in 2008 with their two young children hoping for a better life.

A year later when their visas expired they asked a family friend at their Auckland church to help them apply for residency.

But he was unlicensed and made mistakes on their applications.

The Talamais were told to leave the country.

Mrs Talamai spoke to RNZ News through her sister Lesieli, who translated her words.

"We knew that he didn't have a licence, but we asked him for help because he's Tongan.

"We can understand him when we're communicating and are from the same culture."

After five years of appeals and pleas, the Immigration and Protection Tribunal granted the Talamai family residency on humanitarian grounds this year.

"We cried - it was a celebration. Once we found out we got it we sat and prayed just to thank God for giving us a door for us to stay in New Zealand with our family," she said.

"The children cried as well - we were all so happy."

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• iaa.govt.nz