Winning the 2025 Tagaloa PhD Scholarship

Salā Marie Young is founder and managing director of PEP.

L-R: Emeritus Professor Tagaloatele Dr Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop, Associate Professor Dr Cherie Chu-Fuluifaga ONZM, Salā Marie Young, Rochelle Atherton (commendation winner), Lusila Tahaafe (Masters scholarship winner), and Milosi Su'a (Ministry of Education)

I am so blessed to receive the Ministry of Education’s Tagaloa Scholarship for my doctoral studies at the University of Otago. Only one doctoral student and one masters student (Lusila Tahaafe) receives this scholarship each year, although this year there was an exceptional commendation for masters student Rochelle Atherton. I’m so proud to stand alongside two remarkable Pacific women, and I appreciate the synergy present across all of our research.

The Ministry’s Pacific Ākonga team showed us much manaaki and alofa as we met in Wellington to receive our awards. Perhaps even more valuable than the certificate and trophy were the words of encouragement from our esteemed evaluation panel, including Emeritus Professor Tagaloatele Dr Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop and Associate Professor Dr Cherie Chu-Fuluifaga ONZM.

The ula (floral garland) I wore is a tribute to my praying mother to celebrate this special occasion. I acknowledge my hard working parents when they arrived in New Zealand in the late 60’s to give my younger sister and I a better life.

I shared a few words with the assembled guests.

Here is a summary.

Salā Marie Young (R) with Suitauloa Simon Young

“This is not about me”

This is not about me. It’s about our family, our parents, our grandparents, our community. Our support system. You know, we really need a support system because this journey is really hard, especially when you get to this level. Family, fa’alavelave and serving the community are still there for us Pasifika people to juggle.

Anything I do has to come from within first. If I don't feel it, if I don't have the fire, if I don't think I'm actually going to believe it and step into that dominion, then I shouldn’t do it. I haven't always thought of myself as an academic, because I was not raised around high educational achievement. Our environment, sense of belonging, our identity is crucial to how we then become successful - or not - later on in life.

Family provide an essential support system for studies

The power of a goal

But one day in 2006, I wrote on a piece of paper, I'm going to get my PhD. God willing, if everything goes according to plan and I graduate next year, it will be 20 years since I wrote that promise to myself.

Getting a Masters and then a Doctorate is such a huge testament and our community celebrates with such pride because, we fight - not physically, but there are so many other barriers that we have to deal with every day, whether it’s systemic racism, the dominant discourse or whatever you want to call it.

My research, my passion

But that leads me into why I'm really passionate about this particular topic. My working research question - because it is still a work in progress - is “how might principles of Samoan Indigenous grassroots governance shape a social enterprise model to financially sustain and culturally preserve our Early Learning Services (ELS) in Aotearoa”. So it's not just preserving culture, but it's really to keep our language, keep our sense of identity and how we might look at innovation from within.

How can we innovate? We're very good at coming up with money when the culture calls. In 24 hours we can mobilise tens of thousands of dollars in our extended family unit. I believe we have an entrepreneurial spirit within. And so let’s tap into that innovation when it comes to preserving our culture, our language. How might we then take it a little bit further and use our entrepreneurial spirit to innovate and bring about some co-design hybrid model that can financially sustain us so that we don’t need to depend on the government.

My inspiration

I've been an entrepreneur all my life. I was that kid that always wanted to know, how much is that? What's your margins? Who's paying for this? My grandfather Moenoa Tusagi Laufili Time from Saleimoa was a real inspiration to me. He was the minister of agriculture in the first Samoan cabinet, and he was also an entrepreneur. He had a taxi rank, and he turned a hall into the first movie theatre outside Apia where everyone could come and watch kung fu, karate, and cowboy movies. Then he had a shop next door, because if people are lining up for the movies, they’ll also want to buy something to eat.

He had a bakery, too. He grew the bakery from an idea, perfected the quality, scaled it up to employ the locals. And then he put on his agricultural hat, and said we're going to plant a plantation. We're going to use our land so the whole village can continue to flourish and thrive.

So he was one of my inspirations. And so I started to go down that track. I noticed that I always questioned the boss or manager when I was in a 9 to 5 job. I used to get into trouble, and I didn't realise then, but it was my entrepreneurial spirit. No matter my job description, I would ask to try something new. I ended up winning an innovation award, because they were so sick of me coming up with new ideas!

So I’ve always been that kind of person, even when I was much younger. I would play office boss, used an old Remington second-hand typewriter, set up my workstation and pretended I had a desk, and I visualised that I was helping people.

It’s a great privilege and honour to receive this award, and before our ancestors that have gone before us, I acknowledge and give God all the glory!