NZCT Supports Counties Manukau Kirikiti Association

NZCT awarded a grant of $10,000 to Counties Manukau Kirikiti Association (CMKA) for event management staff to help resource the Kilikiti season for the Auckland region.

Director of Strategic Partnerships Leilua Winston says, “Our projects inspire the Pasifika community to be physically and socially active, resulting in strengthening community resilience and cohesion through Kilikiti.”

“We are working with culturally sound and appropriate organisations skilled in the running, management, and coordination of our community kilikiti programmes who are respected in the Pasifika community. They have helped the Pasifika community to participate in Kilikiti initiatives through churches, villages the community and through schools.”

“We supported the regional PIC youth games with Kilikiti as one of their modules on 26 and 27 December 2022, which brought together up to eight youth groups with over 1,000 participants from across the Auckland Region to participate in a church group kilikiti event under the banner of the PIC games.”

“This year, the Kilikiti Bonanza week ran from 2-7 January with four one day events planned across the Auckland region. These events bought together over 3,000 participants consisting of players, supporters, families, and community leaders to celebrate their connectedness and cohesion.”

“Kilikiti involves much more than just physical activity and recreation. It brings together mainly Samoan, Tokelau, Tuvalu ethnic groups that make up over 65% of the Pasifika Community residing in NZ to strengthen their cultural identity, language, and sense of belonging. This has a massive impact on their holistic well-being as citizens of Aotearoa, a place they now call home.”

“We have a schedule of key engagement events from January through April 2023 before we move into the planning stages for our rep teams selected for training camps from May – August that are looking to travel to competitions in Australia later in the year.”