Think Pacific leadership, and you might think Fiji’s Frank Bainimarama. But that’s just part of the picture.

JANICE IKIUA talks to the convenor of a movement fostering leaders around the Pacific. Leadership Pacific gives her confidence in the future, she writes, as it is already inspiring many of her generation.

LEADERSHIP DRIVE: Kabini Sanga (left) in conversation with Maciu Raivoka, Sione Vaka and Cherie Chu.

HIS VISION is to grow 1000 new generation Pacific leaders by 2015 – a goal which has raised eyebrows but one he sees as achievable and already gaining momentum.

Kabini Sanga is well known in the Pacific for driving leadership initiatives that change lives. Last year he ran the second Wellington Leadership Symposium and has run workshops in Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands. 

Pacific Island Affairs Minister Georgina te Heuheu and Labour MP Charles Chauvel talked to more than 120 attendees at the symposium.

The Pacific Co-operation Foundation sponsored a website, the Growing of 1000 New Generation Pacific Leaders, to support Dr Sanga’s vision for developing and growing Leaders.

“The vision is to inspire Pacific peoples themselves to assume responsibility for improving their own leadership,” he says.

The Leadership Pacific programme he convenes is about inspiring younger people, “particularly Pacific Islanders who see themselves now as leaders, not in a positional sense but as people of influence”, he says.

“Commonly adults refer to younger people as leaders of tomorrow. In Leadership Pacific, we see young people as leaders of today. We charge them to be purposeful about their daily choices and actions because their decisions of today matter, tomorrow.”

This man’s journey began in a small village – Ngongosila, East Malaita, in the Solomon Islands – that has no electricity to this day. 

“I grew up in a tribal village world, very different from the world of schools I went to or the contemporary Western world I now live in,” he says. “My village world was more open, as a place of learning for children.

“The classroom was the Pacific ocean, the reefs, the rivers, the forest. Every experience was educational and teaching and learning took place 24-7.”

At age nine he went to boarding school in another district. The rest of his schooling was done away from home.

 “I chose always to return home to the village each year, in this way I kept connected and rooted without losing my head to the attractions of the wider world.”

Dr Kabini works as associate professor at Victoria University within the faculty of education.

In his office the book shelves are filled and any spare space is taken with books and papers. Walls are adorned with pictures of his family and students he has mentored; his coffee mug has Saskatchewan University, Canada written in green bold letters, a memoir of the place where he studied for his PhD.

“My passion for leadership came progressively throughout time, it did not appear suddenly as I had to nurture my interest. Today, my day is full just thinking about leaders and leadership and what might be done to help.”

His hope is in the next two years through Leadership Pacific that there will be an established leadership vision for this country.

“My sincere hope is that 100 younger citizens of Aotearoa, New Zealand will rise up as new generation leaders; inspiring their families, schools, neighbourhoods and country and raising the leadership capacity of New Zealand society.

“It will be this cohort of Kiwis who will lead the vision for turning New Zealand around to credibility by virtue of their credible leadership.”

The leadership programme forms a cluster of students at different levels of tertiary studies and of those who have graduated and are now working.  There are no pre-requisites or forms to fill out.

Wellington Institute of Technology lecturer Kurese Manueli is a student of the leadership cluster and has been a participant in Leadership Pacific over the past five years.

Mr Manueli says the cluster offers him an avenue where he can him myself and can safely navigate the challenging waters of postgraduate studies.

“Through the cluster I have met other members who ‘have been there done that’ and so I am motivated to achieve my academic goals knowing that my cluster members (more like family members) can provide guidance/advise in times of uncertainty, academic loneliness, and whatever else is out there.”

Mr Manueli explains that Dr Kabini has his own style of teaching leadership which resonates with his upbringing.

“For me, the major difference is the empowering nature of his presence.  To me he is an older-brother type of figure who I can approach any time for guidance whenever required.  Through his wide international experience I am able to receive guidance and advise that is relevant to me. 

“Coming from a science background, most of the stuff I’ve learnt is text-book based and somewhat disconnected to my island-based upbringing. Dr. Kabini’s teaching style and examples are relevant to my childhood experience and it is naturally engaging when he is addressing us.”

Many students say Dr Kabini is more of a friend as opposed to a mentor.

Mr Manueli says the cluster adds value to his studies.  He says he’s developing leadership skills, has hands-on practice, networks with other Pacific students, and “grows naturally”.

Dr Sanga takes no responsibility for the changes that happen with students as he says it’s about them making the changes for themselves.

“They become more enabling to others at home, in school or at work.  They seek to be credible in their own lives and begin to be models to others, rather than wait for a later time. From a mentor’s view when my leadership students demonstrate such changes in their own lives, it is so delightful and rewarding to observe.”

In the quest for 1000 leaders, Dr Kabini says numbers are not important as the networks will keep expanding. But he says there are 300 to 500 participants so far across New Zealand, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Niue and Fiji.