A pivotal advocate for the work of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, in particular its languages mahi, Melegalenuu Ah Sam NZOM (pictured), has sadly passed away.
The Ministry would like to acknowledge her life’s work, as a parent, partner, educator, and champion of Gagana Samoa.
Melegalenuu was a long-serving Mangere College Deputy Principal, who since 1993 had been the lead coordinator of the Samoan stage at ASB Auckland Polyfest.
In 2022, Melegalenuu was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit as part of the Queen's Birthday and Platinum Jubilee Honours List, for services to Pacific language education.
During the previous year, Melegalenuu received a Tautai o le Gagana Language Champion Honours Award from the Ministry for her involvement in the Pacific Language Weeks series.
On receiving the award, Melegalenuu said she always encouraged students to speak Gagana Samoa in and out of the classroom.
“I encourage teachers to speak a few words in Samoan each week not just Samoa Language Week, and our school library has lots of books written in Samoan for students to read and find out about Samoa.”
Born and raised in Samoa, Melegalenuu moved to Christchurch when she was awarded a New Zealand Scholarship. She attended the University of Canterbury before moving onto Teacher’s College.
Following Teacher’s College, she returned to Samoa to serve her bond, and taught Commerce subjects at Samoa College and then Church College of Western Samoa.
Melegalenuu married and returned to New Zealand with her husband and daughter, then began teaching at Auckland’s Nga Tapuwae College, Otahuhu College, and finally Mangere College, where she taught until recently.
Gagana Samoa was always spoken in Melegalenuu’s household, without question.
While growing up in Samoa, she attended Samoa College where students were encouraged to speak English instead of Gagana Samoa, and despite the consequences of speaking her indigenous language, she continued to speak it at school.
When she moved to New Zealand, Melegalenuu promised she would teach her children Gagana Samoa so they could be proud of her identity.
Driving Melegalenuu to nurture and sustain Gagana Samoa was the sense of identity, faasinomaga and belonging she found from speaking it.
Language defined who Melegalenuu was, what she did and her beliefs, and her passing is a great loss to the cause of revitalising it in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The Ministry would like to pass on its heartfelt condolences to the Ah Sam aiga.