Last week, our Healthy Families South Auckland team (HFSA) hosted a Systems Change webinar on Movement and Sport in South Auckland, presented by our Systems Lead Innovator, Pita Alatini.

The presentation touched upon the lived experiences of our Māori and Pacific communities when finding compelling reasons to be physically active, the conditions holding the barriers in place, and the system change approach of changing policy, practice and resource flow to enable Māori and Pacific communities to take ownership of their physical activity.

“When we are working on systems change with our communities, we have to be direct and intentional. We have to understand the lived experiences of our communities, and how they move so we that we can co-design and create initiatives and resources to help compel them to move,” says Pita.

As part of Pita’s presentation, he highlighted the impact of the Village Games and Church Plant on our South Auckland communities as well as our work with advocacy groups, including Move Auckland Pacific Collective and Vai O Hawaiki.

 “We need to continue to work with our communities and stakeholders to simplify the funding models so that resources are directed to our communities which amplifies our Pacific ways of moving. As always, we will support them in the background,” says Pita.

Watch the live here.