TANGALOA’S CONNECTION

Tagaloa Poasa is a man who has faced many challenges. After his fathers death in 1977 he and his mother returned to her village Taga where Tagaloa cultivated their two family plots with thriving banana and taro plantation.

Farming these two plots allowed Tagaloa to support his family for 36 years. This support came to a end when cyclone Evan arrived. Evan destroyed all of Tagaloa’s family crops and with stress cyclone Evan brought also came a series of strokes which left Tagaloa in a wheelchair and confined to his house.

Tagaloa, once a man of the land started to struggle with the confinements of his chair and the walls of his fale.

Living KoKo is working closely with Women in Business to create markets within Australia and overseas for Tagaloa and farmers like him.

The warmth and resilience of this family in the face of the hardships presented to them was truly inspiring.

With the support of WIBDI’s Robert Tufunai, Tagaloa’s family were taught how to farm coffee, vanilla and cacao. They now have over 200+ coffee plants. His lovely wife Koreti tends to the plants near house so she can still run the household and help with Tagaloa’s rehabilitation, while his sons are learning from Tagaloa and now tend to the away plot. Being a visual man of the land he has his concerns that his crops are not being tended too in the right way, and would give anything to be working the land with his sons and be more hands on with their teaching.

Living KoKo is working closely with Women in Business to create markets within Australia and overseas for Tagaloa and farmers like him.

The warmth and resilience of this family in the face of the hardships presented to them was truly inspiring.

Living Koko acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are based on, Narrm (Melbourne); the Wurundjeri and neighbouring Boonwurrung Peoples of the Kulin Nation, Australia. We pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded.

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