Our vision is that Pasefika peoples voices are heard, elevated and supported in a socially just and inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand.

The historical and regional ties between Pasefika, and their home nations, and Aotearoa are strong and binding. Pasefika contribute much to the economy, wellbeing and social tapestry of Aotearoa.

Pasefika in Aotearoa are resilient and they thrive through the many challenges they have and continue to face.

Poutū Pasefika supports and invests in initiatives that advance equity for Pasefika peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand. It prioritises transformational system change to remove obstacles to Pasefika peoples fulfilling their potential.

Through our work, we hope to see:

More connected communities
More inclusive decision making
Increased Pasefika capacity and capabilities
Increased access to resources
More equitable access to resources

Funding opportunities

We're currently focusing on supporting groups and organisations who are making impact in the following areas:

  
Pasefika Advocacy
Pasefika-led and collaborative approaches for collective interest
Cultural wellbeing & intergenerational indigenous approaches to building resilience

All initiatives must be culturally informed, following our funding principles set out below.

Poutū Pasefika Funding Principles

Support Pasefika values

By Pasefika for Pasefika

Build, support and maintain relationships

Explore innovation for change

By Pasefika for Pasefika

Partnerships are guided by Pasefika leadership, knowledge, and aspiration, ensuring solutions are designed and led from within communities.

Pasefika-led initiatives and advocacy that advance self-determination, economic empowerment, and financially sustainable pathways, including efforts that strengthen financial governance, commercial confidence, and the ability to engage with funders and institutions from a position of strength.

Supporting Pasefika Values

Partnerships honour Pasefika values such as alofa, āiga, spirituality, and collective wellbeing as essential foundations for intergenerational outcomes.

Partnerships will focus on enabling platforms and infrastructure that allow Pasefika communities to organise, connect, and navigate systems on their own terms, including community-owned hubs, shared tools, and digital or relational infrastructure that endure beyond individual programmes or funding cycles.

Sustaining Tautai Mata’alia Relationships

Build, support, and maintain relationships - enduring change is enabled through trusted relationships with experienced Pasefika leaders who can navigate complexity and lead collective action.

Poutū Pasefika will partner to strengthen the capacity, confidence, and sustainability of tautai mata’alia as systems leaders, including flexible support for leadership development, peer learning, coaching, wellbeing, and upstream engagement with funders, institutions, and policy actors.

Exploring Innovation for Change

Priority is given to initiatives with potential to grow, be replicated, or influence systems beyond a single programme or community.

Partnerships will back promising Pasefika-led “bright sparks” that demonstrate aspiration beyond survival and show potential to seed, scale, or influence systems, through staged, flexible support that enables learning, evidence-building, and readiness for broader adoption.

Here are some of the incredible initiatives we've supported:

DigiKōr Podcasting Project

The DigiKōr Podcasting Project is the brainchild of Will Fleming and Campfire Studios in Auckland. The project is about connecting through kōrero to facilitate safe, open, honest, and compassionate conversations with young people and their elders. The J R McKenzie Trust support is a collaboration with Campfire Studios to design and implement a podcasting course that is informed by a response identified by Pasefika communities for more meaningful connections and talanoa with aiga. The course would provide important skills around digital creation and how it can be used to enhance wellbeing and strengthen identity, connection, and access opportunities to influence more inclusive decision-making from transformational change.

Ranui 135 Youth Trust

Ranui 135 is a grassroots Youth Development Trust which initially grew out of members who were involved with the Ranui Action Group Project’s Youth Focus group of 2001. The group saw a need to provide positive opportunities for young people to have a voice and to elevate that voice in their community. The J R McKenzie Trust’s collaboration with Ranui 135 is to support their three year initiative “Kumiaga ke he aga Motu” (Searching for Culture). The initiative is focused on working with the West Auckland matua Niue community to gather their stories, histories, and heritage, and for Ranui 135 to bring together the Niuean diaspora searching for culture and re-connection between both their young and old in culturally safe environments, and through digitally transformative ways.

Zeal

Zeal is an Aotearoa youth organisation providing safe, inclusive local and online spaces for young New Zealanders. The J R McKenzie Trust are currently supporting Zeal with a three year initiative focused on increasing tech opportunities for Pasefika and Māori West Auckland rangatahi, specifically through facilitating fortnightly youth tech refurbishing/e-sports clubs, and hosting tech expos teaching 200 rangatahi per year to refurbish computers.

Malaga Sā Strings Orchestra

Malaga Sā is a voluntary Pasefika community group established through a collaboration of Pasefika families in the Porirua East community, who came together in December 2021 to talanoa a potential journey and narrative for our Pasefika youth based on the premise that they are enough. They are enough to overcome the intergenerational impacts of colonisation on Pasefika youth by disrupting the current trajectory of these impacts from impoverished to empowered, from oppression to creation, from exclusion to inclusion, and from colonisation to community. The J R McKenzie Trust support is focused on providing Malaga Sā with a platform for their medium to long term goal of establishing a Porirua based Pasefika Community Creative & Performing Arts Trust, with the launch of the Malaga Sā Strings Youth Orchestra in March 2023.

"la tautai o se mata'alia"

“Let the boat be guided by an experienced helmsman”

Tautau mata'alia is a Samoan term that describes the characteristics of chosen individuals placed at the helm of their respective organisations. They are competent and can be relied on by those they speak and act for.

Tautai mata'alia bridge that space between their repective organisations and the JR McKenzie Trust. In difficult and challenging situations, tautai mata'alia are chosen and relied upon to guide the organisation / group to achieve their purpose.