Many Pasifika families affected by the flash floods and torrential rainfall that have lashed New Zealand’s North Island over the past few days were braced for more bad weather overnight.

With four people dead and hundreds forced out of their homes over the weekend a state of emergency remained in force for Auckland and one has also now been issued for Northland.

The predominately Pasifika neighbourhood of Māngere is among the worst affected areas in Auckland.

Streets throughout the suburb were submerged after torrential rain last Friday caused rivers to overflow their banks.

Māngere resident Louisa Opetaia said the water rose so suddenly that it rapidly flooded her entire home while she was still asleep.

“When I got home from work, I took a nap at about 7.30pm. When I woke up an hour later and I got off my bed, I splashed into water,” said Opetaia.

“It was already halfway up my calf and up to my knee, and the three rooms in my house were flooded,” she added.

Emergency centres were quickly set up, providing supplies and temporary shelter over the weekend and even now to the dozens of families displaced by the floods.

One of the busiest centres is the Māngere Memorial Hall in Manukau.

Auckland city councillor Alf Filipaina, who has been helping to organise relief efforts, said many families continued to arrive at the hall on Tuesday, requiring basic goods and household items ruined by the floods.

“Heaps of families have been affected and we’ve been working tirelessly,” said Filipaina.

“We’ve had all the groups here from KaingaOra, the Fono, Ministry of Social Development and others. They’re all here helping people,” he said.

“We’ll be open 24/7 for people who also want a roof over their heads.”

Filipaina said that some families were in a desperate situation, being forced out of their homes and having lost most of their possessions, including even their vehicles.

“There are people who need financial assistance,” said Filipaina.

“Some of them have lost everything, and we can only give what donations and goods that we have,” he explained.

The community response has been swift in Manukau with various agencies and good Samaritans donating goods and providing services, including from local heroes such as David Tua and All Black Ofa Tu’ungafasi.

“People are always offering to help,” Louisa Opetaia said.

“People have been taking our laundry to the laundromat for us, which is really helpful, and we’ve received a lot of food. That’s what I love about our Pasifika community in Māngere, everyone comes together when people need help.

“We were able to talk to Ministry of Social Development at the Māngere Memorial Hall. I’m not on the benefit so I wasn’t sure if I would qualify for any help but I do.”

Opetaia said she was now moving out of her house as it was too hazardous to live there.

She said the biggest challenge for her at the moment was getting rid of damaged furniture drenched and ruined by the floods.

“We are trying to get the council to help us get a skip bin so that we can throw anything that was affected by the flood waters, and we have a big pile of stuff at the moment,” Opetaia said.

“I understand that there a lot of people who are more severely affected than us. We do need help but at the same time we are grateful because we are in a better situation than others.”

Meanwhile, according to the NZ Metservice many Aucklanders living south of Orewa may not see heavy rain last night — but localised downpours were still forecast for some.

Meteorologist Georgina Griffiths told RNZ Checkpoint that the key danger was rain falling on saturated soil making the region flood quickly.

But she predicted some parts of the city would escape a deluge.

Georgina Griffiths said Auckland was nearly out of the woods, with a drier weekend forecast and a dry week from Tuesday.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific health providers say a major New Zealand government funding boost is not just a recognition of the critical role they play in reaching Pasifika communities, but of the urgent and sustained response that the delta variant demands

The government has announced a NZ$26 million package of support for the Pacific community which is bearing the brunt of the current covid-19 Delta outbreak.

It also announced a $23 million boost in funding to Whānau Ora to be divided between its three agencies including Pasifika Futures.

The funding comes with immediacy because health officials recognise the fast moving delta variant demands an urgent response.

Especially since the number of Pacific people infected is high, as is the number of Pacific peoples isolating.

Director of Pacific Health, Gerardine Clifford-Lidstone said the funding would firstly secure the services of Pacific provider networks in Auckland and Wellington regions where Pasifika needed the most, and immediate, support.

“The second is to support mobile services and ensure that people can get tested in the home and vaccinated in the home and have other health issues dealt with,” Clifford-Lindstone said.

“And then the third one is communications to ensure that our communities have access to information around vaccines and that needs to be in ethnic specific languages.”

Maintaining momentum
The boost will help maintain momentum in the vaccine rollout and ongoing testing, which Pasifika Futures’ CEO Debbie Sorensen said had been met with a great response by the Pacific community

“And the Whānau Ora money will of course support people being able to stay in their bubbles. Being able to stay safe and keep their families fed and a roof over their families. We’ve had an assurance from Te Puni Kōkiri that we will have that money in our hands tomorrow,” Sorensen said.

She said there was no question that until now Pacific providers generally had been under-funded.

“They were not funded with any flexibility to meet a surge demand. So this will go some way to making sure that as a community we’re able to respond and support our families over the next fortnight but also to be looking into the future about what we do next,” she said.

Tevita Funaki of Pacific health and social support provider The Fono welcomes the funding boost.

He said the health and social strains from this outbreak would have a significantly longer tail than those the community experienced after lockdowns last year.

And with the level of demand for The Fono’s food packages this time around, families needed more sustained support.

Welfare support initiative
“The welfare support, so there’s a welfare support initiative that is supporting especially those that are in isolation. We’ll be able to maintain that because now we will have the ability to re-deploy staff into it. So this will help not only to scale it up, or help to resource it, but also will help to continue it, at least for the short to medium term,” said Funaki.

The innovation manager of Pacific health, disability and social services provider Vaka Tautua, Bernice Mene, said the boost made public health sense given what her organisation had seen working throughout the country.

“And a lot of the feedback is that they are keen for vaccinations but the access, there’s problems with access. And our disabilities community as well. It’s being able to access the vaccination stations, the essential workers or the workers as well,” Mene said.

She said increased support for communication, getting Pacific communities the essential information in a way they could access was also vital in the pandemic response.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Samoa’s Head of State has agreed to convene Parliament in order to swear in the members elected in April’s general election after weeks of political deadlock.

Leaders of the majority FAST party – which won 26 of 51 seats – met with Tuimaleali’ifano Va’aleto’a Sualauvi II today to request that Parliament be called on Friday.

FAST has advised the Head of State of their majority, and the party’s intention to form a government once Parliament meets.

The caretaker Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) government that has been in power for four decades is attempting to delay Parliament, claiming electoral legal challenges need to be settled first.

However, FAST leader Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said the Head of State had agreed to convene Parliament, although he has yet to confirm a date.

Fiame acknowledged Tuimaleali’ifano’s critical role in calling Parliament together, which would then allow elected representatives to get on with their roles to govern.

The HRPP is challenging a Supreme Court ruling issued on Monday which has opened the way for FAST to form a government.

This challenge will be heard tomorrow.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Frontline Pasifika healthcare teams have been given a NZ$19.5 million funding boost in New Zealand as they work around the clock to fight covid-19 at the community level.

A mobile team from health provider, The Fono, is just one of several critical to stemming the tide of covid-19 in the Pasifika community, which makes up three-quarters of all positive cases in the current outbreak.

Testing in homes has found several positive cases from those unable or too afraid to go to a testing station.

READ MORE: Churches key to stemming spread of covid-19 in Pasifika community

“We had a case where there was somebody on the property that wasn’t actually listed to be tested but we did an opportunistic test on them and we caught a positive case,” The Fono public health manager Emily Hughes said.

Medical staff who can speak the first language of Pasifika households are key to testing.

“Understanding the cultural norms and practises of our families are also quite critical, but also it’s the trust and the relationship with these families that help them during the times that is high anxiety,” The Fono chief executive Tevita Funaki said.

The government has since provided almost $20 million in an urgent response for Pasifika healthcare providers.

Contact tracing importance
“This is important, especially for contact tracing because in order to get the right information, it’s really important that we have people that can speak the different Pacific languages,” Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa said.

Along with its normal welfare work, The Fono is looking after 230 families who have tested positive for covid-19 or are close contacts currently in isolation.

“It could range from support for the young children, what are their needs, to the elderly to the whole family,” Funaki said. “We also provide a crisis immediate support around utilities and rent and so forth for this short period of time.”

Providing food has also been critical, having provided close to 700 food packages to families in need yesterday. More packages will be going out today to vulnerable Pasifika households and families in isolation due to coronavirus.

“They really appreciate what we do, going and doing that special requirement, shopping for them – things that we might not have available here at our Fono,” team leader Tima Hunt said.

TVNZ’s Barbara Dreaver reports are republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz