Martha Metuisela is powering up the next generation
Growing up seeing her community without support in an environment where they were not always understood, Martha Metuisela found the motivation and courage to drive her down her chosen career path.
“I really want to make a change. To power up the next generation so they don’t have to go through I went through,” Martha says.
Before working with CMY’s Le Mana (Empower) Pasifika Project, Martha was volunteering for the Brimbank City Council as a Casual Youth Worker. Her role was focused on supporting the Pasifika community and young people. After two years, Martha began to work full-time for the Council where she had the opportunity to develop a range of different programs to support young people in her community.
With all this experience and a drive to make a real difference, three years ago Martha joined the Le Mana team as a Multicultural Youth Worker, based in CMY’s Sunshine office and covering the North West area.
“I really enjoy my team. We are such a close family. We can rely on each other and we all know when something is going wrong within the team and we are able to work together to solve it.”
Temese Leilua, Le Mana Pasifika Program Development Leader, says
“Martha has an exuberance about her that is uplifting, empowering, influential and a quality that is clearly evident within our Le Mana team and her work with Pasifika young people, families and the community.”
When she talks about the Le Mana work does, Martha describes it as “a bridge between the community and organisations and service providers.”
Although there have always been challenges, like building a project from scratch, or the lack of research in terms of structures or strategies to follow around Pasifika and Maori culture, Martha says there have also been significant highlights. The Le Mana team has built a strong reputation within the community, and now the project is at an exciting stage where people turn to Le Mana as a trusted source of support and guidance when they are in need.
“Whenever our community has an issue our phones are open, we are not just average workers who work from 9am to 5pm because we have gained that trust within our community.”
Martha’s 3 highlights of working at CMY:
1. It is an organisation with a very good understanding in terms of culture of the way we live, and how we live in Australia.
2. It’s a big family that shares the same vision and works together to make that vision possible.
3. CMY is a very powerful organisation with a whole team of go-getters that encourage you.
If you want to know more about the Le Mana Pasifika Project click here.