A free service for Pacific peoples is helping families achieve their home ownership dreams.
SIAOLA (Vahefonua Tonga Methodist Mission Charitable Trust) is an Auckland-based voluntary organisation that supports the education, health and economic development of Tongan Methodist church members throughout the country.
In 2017, experienced home loan specialist, Susan Prescott Taufa, set up SIAOLA’s financial wellbeing service. She wanted to use her extensive banking experience to help more Tongan and Pacific families with budgeting and saving, and ultimately get them on the path to home ownership.
SIAOLA is now supported by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples’ Pacific Financial Capability Development Programme (PFC). The PFC helps fund financial capability programmes for Pacific families and communities, to help them develop their financial management skills.
One recipient of SIAOLA’s financial guidance is 66-year-old, Tafinga Malu’atonga Māsila (pictured), who says she is proud to have proved “you can still buy a house at 65″.
When she moved from Tonga to New Zealand in 1984, Tafinga immediately started working and dreamed of owning her own home.
For decades, Tafinga worked full time, as well as growing taro and making handicrafts on the side. She managed her income carefully, budgeting to make sure all living expenses and family obligations were covered every week.
Tafinga heard about SIAOLA at church, when Ms Prescott Taufa attended a service to speak about pathways to home ownership. Listening to her presentation, Tafinga says she realised “all the things she said, that’s me. I’ve done it.”
Now aged 66, Tafinga purchased her house at 65, with guidance and advice from SIAOLA.
“Turns out you can still buy a house at 65 years old, but it depends on you and how you manage your money wisely,” she says.
Tafinga believes that without hearing about SIAOLA at church that day, she might still be living in a Housing New Zealand house.
Describing her own home as “heaven”, Tafinga says she is proud to have an asset that can one day support her wider family.
“I know that there will come a day when I will no longer be around, but at least I have built generational wealth for my family, and my children I brought to this earth will live a comfortable life,” she says.
