About 50 young Pasifika have rallied to volunteer as frontline workers as Covid cases continue to rise in their community.
South Seas Healthcare's youth hub Bubblegum have mobilised across the Pacific provider’s health and wellbeing services.
With 70 per cent of the cases in the Delta outbreak are Pasifika, Bubblegum's young people are running the foodbank because they know about hardship first-hand.
“One of the main things that we're hearing is the uncertainty around the wages - a lot of these families they are having to cater for their grandparents or their aunties and uncles who are not able to come out or drive to these kinds of places,” Bubblegum youth coordinator Ana Kivalu said.
Hundreds of food boxes are being distributed to families in the AOG Church of Samoa cluster.
Bubblegum have hit the phones to check in on fellow youth in the community. Many are worried about their families and there's concern they will leave school to provide for them.
“Mental health is definitely an issue especially with the pressures of not only having a family that needs support but also having school on top of that - so we wanted to go online with our academic programme to keep them in school,” Bubblegum youth coordinator Peter Tanginoa.
Just before lockdown, Bubblegum youth helped their elderly get vaccinated, with the many who spoke English as a second language struggling with the paperwork.
Now in Alert Level 4, they're helping provide the 0800 Pasifika vaccination helpline with second language options.
“They call us they’re quite scared so I think just by us talking to them and knowing that we are Pasifika as well i think that helps them take the scare away from them,” Avele Pelite from the Pasifika vaccination helpline said.
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