Empowering Pacific businesswomen to navigate the challenges and celebrate success

A business consultant encourages communities to get behind enterprises led by Pacific women.

“When you support a Pasifika woman-led business, you’re supporting a family”, Afamasaga Jackie Curry, director of Spacific Consultancy, says.

Figures from Stats NZ reveal that New Zealand has 612,420 enterprises, with more than a third located in Auckland.

Afamasaga says that while some businesses commonly associated with Pacific women include handicrafts and beauty products, others are venturing into more traditionally male-dominated industries.

“As anyone that would have hit the Pasifika Festival over the weekend would have seen, accessories are very, very popular, as well as fashion, traditional accessories, our ‘ei katu, pales, seis, jewellery.

“There are quite a few of our women getting into digital marketing as well. There's an amazing business called Creative Coconut, who develop websites and social media.”

Afamasaga also runs the Inailau Pacific Business Women’s Network, which provides women with a platform to connect, collaborate, and access opportunities.

She emphasises the importance of community support, saying, “Women really thrive when they’re in a community, just like in church or family settings. When they talk, encourage, and uplift each other, there’s a spirit of camaraderie that helps them take action.”

Watch Afamasaga Jackie Curry's full interview below.

Support systems lacking

A 2017 study by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples on Pacific Women and Men in Business shows that women make up less than half of the Pacific business owners or employers, with the highest representation from Sāmoa and the Cook Islands.

Tapu Elia, owner of Bubu’s Lashes, has transformed her passion for eyelash extensions into a business. She offers both online and in-person training sessions in brow and lash services.

“I'm really happy to be here to be able to teach other women how to break into the beauty industry and also, of course, earn a good income from it as well,” Elia says.

Photo/Bubu's Lashes

Speaking to William Terite on Pacific Mornings, Afamasaga says some businesses are born out of necessity.

“A lot of our women, they would leave the workforce, some of them may be redundant, especially with the current times, and they have a lot of professional skills.

“So they then move into starting a small consultancy business, sharing whatever skills and knowledge they have, a lot of times contracting back to organisations they used to work with, but also putting their skills out there.”

An uneven playing field

New Zealand First Party recently submitted a bill to scrap regulations promoting diversity, inclusiveness and equity in the public sector.

Afamasaga says women business owners don’t feel supported.

“One, they're women, so gender has been brought up as [being] no longer important here in New Zealand in terms of government policy, and on top of that, being Pasifika, so it's a double hit for our women,

“Unless you have policies and funding that actually is targeted at our women, Pasifika women are going to miss out because their businesses are smaller, so therefore they tend to not get a lot of support.”

The Inailau Pacific Business Women’s Network is hosting networking events in person and online on 18-19 March.