Survivors of afflictions at the Samoa Victims Support Group are the recipients of a donation of sports uniforms, worth NZ$4,000 (T$6,800).

The donation came from Wyndi and Eli Tagi of Be the Connection Charitable Trust. They had partnered with Sport Waitakere and ACG Sunderland, to make the donation possible.

“I am a part of a group called Sports Waitakere; I’m in the Board of trustees and one of the directors there had spoken to the school ACG Sunderland that they’re rebranding all of their sports uniforms.” Wyndi said.

“So they decided that they wanted to give it to some children in the Pacific Islands and then Sports Waitakere contacted me knowing that I do quite a bit of work in the Pacific Islands and asked if I knew of an organization or a school that would want the donation.”

The uniforms cover a number of different sports, from netball, basketball and others. The pair was in the country last year for the Samoa Business Network’s Trade Mission where they initially heard about Siliniu Lina Chang, SVSG President and the work they have been doing in the country.

“We contacted the Samoa Business Network and asked to get us in touch with Lina and they did which was awesome. So we spoke to Lina and we’ve been able to be part of the programmes that they’ve been doing this week with the Buddy up Programme and got to meet so many of the children and hear all of the great stories.

“So we’re really happy the uniforms are going to some children that wouldn’t normally get this sort of opportunity and hopefully help them get more active and healthy and those are what the school wanted as well.”

Wyndi and Eli are also co-owners of the WE Accounting Firm in Grey Lynn, Auckland.

“Our intention is to do more work with SVSG and to support as much as possible,” Wyndi said. 

“We’ve got lots of connections in New Zealand and lots of people want to help but don’t really know how to help and who to go to so they usually give me a call and I usually find someone I can help out. So it’s really cool we’ve been able to team up with SVSG and hopefully we’ll be able to do more in the future.”

President Siliniu thanked the donors and assured that their generosity will be put to great use.