Vaka Tautua’s Community Connectors making a difference
Vaka Tautua’s Community Connector Service, part of our Aiga Fiafia family of social services and programmes, is designed to connect people with government and provider support to help them recover from the wider impacts of COVID-19.
Young Lina has happily received her glasses now.
Jaemish Dumoine-Victor, known as JD, is one of Vaka Tautua’s hard-working Community Connectors in the Auckland region. In his role, he is making a real difference to the lives of those who need it the most.
Recently, Stephanie reached out to Vaka Tautua for help in getting glasses for her young daughter, Lina, who lives with Down Syndrome. Lina needed special custom-made glasses, which would have been a large financial burden for the family.
JD quickly connected Stephanie with Government services to access the Children’s Spectacles Subsidy. The very next day, Stephanie was able to take Lina to an optician, where she was fitted for her new glasses. Stephanie is so grateful for the support she received from JD and Vaka Tautua – it was more than she ever expected.
In another example of JD springing into action, he recently called on his personal network of family and friends to help a service user in urgent need of baby clothes for her newborn.
With the call for help coming at the end of the week, JD put a notice up on social media, asking for donations of clothing for the week-old baby boy. Overnight, JD’s aiga and friends rallied around with messages of support and bags of baby clothes and blankets for the grateful family.
Siaosi is thrilled with his new hearing aids.
During the latest lockdown period, JD discovered that a Vaka Tautua service user needed to have expensive hearing aids shipped from overseas. Knowing that Siaosi was recovering from surgery, and that the cost of the aid would be a financial strain for his family, JD sent a referral to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).
The Ministry agreed to assist with the cost of the hearing aids, enabling the family to work with Bay Audiology to order the device in a timely way. Siaosi has now received his new hearing aids and is so happy and relieved to have them. His family is extremely grateful for JD’s help in liaising with MSD to get such a positive outcome for Siaosi.
JD joined Vaka Tautua as a Community Connector in June this year, following a career in Pacific media and broadcasting spanning more than two decades. He says, “Ensuring that our Pasifika people are connected to the services and information they need to thrive in this COVID-19 environment, makes my job even more important to their support recovery.”
Click the link for more information about Vaka Tautua’s Community Connector Service.