Pasefika Storytelling as a Pathway to Indigenous Wellbeing: Faiva Fagota Approach
Tracks
Kookaburra Room: In-Person & Virtual via OnAIR
| Tuesday, October 21, 2025 |
| 2:30 PM - 2:50 PM |
| Kookaburra Room (M3) |
Overview
Kayla Schwalger, Tapasā Navigating The Future
Presenter
Miss Kayla Schwalger
Creative Director And Co-founder
Tapasā Navigating The Future
Pasefika Storytelling as a Pathway to Indigenous Wellbeing: Faiva Fagota Approach
Presentation Overview
Pasefika Storytelling as a Pathway to Indigenous Wellbeing explores how intergenerational knowledge and Indigenous frameworks — such as faiva fagota, the art of the tautai (master navigator/fisherman) — can guide authentic, culturally grounded storytelling that strengthens collective wellbeing and deepens community connection.
Rooted in ancestral teachings passed from my great-grandfather to my grandfather — who later encoded this wisdom in his migration-era song Tama o Samoa — this approach shows how Pasefika knowledge survives and evolves across oceans, systems, and generations. As Pacific peoples navigated migration to Aotearoa and pressures to assimilate, song and story became powerful vessels to preserve identity, affirm belonging, and resist cultural erasure — all essential to Indigenous wellbeing.
Drawing on faiva fagota as a guiding framework, I’ll share how we can design and hold storytelling spaces that honour Indigenous values of connection, rhythm, and deep listening. In this space, storytelling becomes more than expression — it becomes a source of healing, cultural renewal, and identity reclamation.
Through Indigenous design and relational methods like talanoa and faiva, we support Pasefika communities to tell their own stories — not extracted or reframed through deficit, but told with pride and power through a strengths-based lens that reflects our values, our rhythm, and our truth.
Faiva fagota is not just a metaphor — it’s a wellbeing model for gathering, navigating, and sustaining relationships in ways that are culturally aligned and spiritually grounded.
Participants will be invited to reflect: How do ancestral stories help us heal? How can Indigenous narratives transform systems? And how might storytelling be the vessel that carries us all toward collective flourishing?
Three Key Learnings:
1. How Indigenous storytelling frameworks like faiva fagota can be used as tools to foster collective wellbeing and deepen community connections.
2. The importance of process over outcome in Pasefika storytelling — honouring ancestral knowledge and relationships through methods like talanoa and faiva.
3. How storytelling, when led by Indigenous communities, can be a powerful means of healing, cultural renewal, and the restoration of identity.
Rooted in ancestral teachings passed from my great-grandfather to my grandfather — who later encoded this wisdom in his migration-era song Tama o Samoa — this approach shows how Pasefika knowledge survives and evolves across oceans, systems, and generations. As Pacific peoples navigated migration to Aotearoa and pressures to assimilate, song and story became powerful vessels to preserve identity, affirm belonging, and resist cultural erasure — all essential to Indigenous wellbeing.
Drawing on faiva fagota as a guiding framework, I’ll share how we can design and hold storytelling spaces that honour Indigenous values of connection, rhythm, and deep listening. In this space, storytelling becomes more than expression — it becomes a source of healing, cultural renewal, and identity reclamation.
Through Indigenous design and relational methods like talanoa and faiva, we support Pasefika communities to tell their own stories — not extracted or reframed through deficit, but told with pride and power through a strengths-based lens that reflects our values, our rhythm, and our truth.
Faiva fagota is not just a metaphor — it’s a wellbeing model for gathering, navigating, and sustaining relationships in ways that are culturally aligned and spiritually grounded.
Participants will be invited to reflect: How do ancestral stories help us heal? How can Indigenous narratives transform systems? And how might storytelling be the vessel that carries us all toward collective flourishing?
Three Key Learnings:
1. How Indigenous storytelling frameworks like faiva fagota can be used as tools to foster collective wellbeing and deepen community connections.
2. The importance of process over outcome in Pasefika storytelling — honouring ancestral knowledge and relationships through methods like talanoa and faiva.
3. How storytelling, when led by Indigenous communities, can be a powerful means of healing, cultural renewal, and the restoration of identity.
Biography
Kayla Fatima Schwalger is a 23-year-old Samoan researcher, mental health advocate, and co-founder of Tapasā Navigating Futures. Her work centres on Indigenous wellbeing, impact storytelling, and systems innovation with Pacific youth. She uplifts Pacific-led initiatives by strengthening capability in narrative and relational practice, ensuring cultural integrity in community-led change. Kayla holds a Master’s degree with a thesis titled “Navigating Mental Health in the Digital Age: Insights from Young Samoans and Their Community.” Guided by ancestral teachings and youth leadership, she brings a unique lens shaped by lived experience, cultural knowledge, and a commitment to transformation through Indigenous approaches.
