In the office, she’s known as Aunty Va. A lady with a strikingly calming aurora and a compassionate smile. She adorns a beautiful traditional Buiniga making her stand out from the crowd. Aunty Va is a Senior Counsellor based at the Empower Pacific Head Office in Lautoka. She joined Empower Pacific in the year 2006 upon the recommendation of the Fiji Social Workers Association. After one phone call and interview, she was hired as a Counsellor for Empower Pacific.

Born in 1958, Aunty Va grew up in a strict Christian household with five other siblings. She describes her childhood as happy. She was the second eldest child in her family with her older sister preceding her. “If one steps out of line, all of us would be disciplined”, she says thinking back to her childhood days with her siblings.

Aunty Va completed her primary school education at Saint Thomas Primary School and her high school education at Ballantine Memorial College before moving on to the Fiji Institute of Technology – now known as the Fiji National University. She originally had plans to continue her studies in Australia but in the very last moments, her father intervened. Aunty Va always expressed that she wanted to settle down abroad but her father wanted to keep her close to him. Instead, Aunty Va settled with an Itaukei man and together they had five beautiful children who have grown up to be successful individuals.

In 1992, Aunty Va attended a workshop on Domestic Violence organized by the Ba Women’s Crisis Centre. This workshop was the turning point in her life that led her to become a Counsellor. The workshop had discussions on domestic violence, rape, child abuse and sexual harassment. This piqued her interest because she had seen things such as sexual harassment happening around her and the workshop enabled her to be able to identify it and learn how to deal with it.

By the end of the workshop, Aunty Va was chosen as a volunteer and she started working for the Ba Women’s Crisis Center. During her time at the Ba Women’s Crisis Center, she was provided in house training and soon found herself networking with the Police and attending to court cases to provide support to women and children.

She has travelled to Australia as a representative of the Crisis Center during the Melanesian Women’s Tour where she got to visit refugee homes, talk about domestic violence in Fiji, rape, child abuse and sexual harassment. The tour lasted five weeks. From there her passion for helping women and children kept growing.

*Aunty Va during International Women’s Day March in Australia*

When she joined Empower Pacific, our office was operating from a Caravan at Old Hospital Road, Lautoka. A team of eight staff was provided counselling and conducted awareness sessions on HIV, AIDS and STI’s. From then till now Empower Pacific has greatly expanded its services with Branches now in Lautoka, Nadi, Suva and Labasa. Our services have also expanded over the years. We provide Psychological First Aid, training on Child Protection, Gender-based Violence and Mental Health issues. We also have an Employee Assistance Program that focuses on employee wellbeing, resilience and improving workplace productivity. Aunty Va has firsthand witnessed and supported the growth of the organization.

We are all thankful to be able to work under the care of Aunty Va and we hope to continue working with her for a long time.

Vasemaca Natoga – Through the Years