New Care of Poor advocate role in Auckland

From left: Maryanne Hall (CSS), Loraine Elliott, Tofilau Bernadette Pereira, Joseph Xulue, Manuel Beazley, Erin Fa’aui.

A new role has been created in Auckland diocese — that of Care of the Poor Advocate.

Tofilau Bernadette Pereira, MNZM, was formally welcomed in the role in a mihi whakatau at the Catholic Social Services — Te Kupenga o te Atawhaitanga site in Otara on June 9.

According to a notice sent to Auckland diocese staff, “this new role will mobilise, assist and create the focus of feeding and nourishing those in need (the poor, the marginalised and those living in poverty)”.

Mrs Pereira will work with parish priests, ethnic chaplaincies, parish pastoral councils, parish communities, other Catholic bodies and communities of other faiths to promote, engage, and enlighten about food poverty, food security, and child poverty. Working from Otara, she will mobilise parishes to support their own foodbanks and support Catholic-led foodbanks, such as that run by Vinnies Auckland.

The Care of the Poor Advocate position has been made possible because of generous funding by philanthropist Sir Owen Glenn. Care for the Poor is one of the main priorities of Auckland diocese’s “Mission Map” pastoral plan.

Mrs Pereira comes to the role with an impressive CV. She was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2020 for services to the Pacific community and women.

According to the Queen’s Birthday honours information from last year, she “has been a community development practitioner for more than 30 years, working with and for communities to strengthen their capacity for community engagement”.

She has been involved with P.A.C.I.F.I.C.A, Inc., New Zealand’s fourth largest non-governmental organisation, for many years, and was its national president from 2017 until April this year.

She was the Pacific region’s youth representative on the governing body of the Commonwealth Youth Programme for three years, she represented the Pacific countries and territories for four years at the United Nations Commission on the
Status of Women, and led the largest delegation of Pacific women to the UN Fourth World Global Conference in 1995.

She has also been involved with the Health Quality and Safety Commission, and has also volunteered in several organisations, including working with Catholic youth.
Mrs Pereira comes to her new role with Auckland diocese after doing community liaison, networking and fundraising work with Vinnies Auckland.

At the mihi whakatau on June 9, the Auckland diocese vicar for Māori, Manuel Beazley, said that the new role “really stems from the impetus of Pope Francis, who is challenging the Church worldwide in our obligation to care for the poor,
and we take that very seriously”.

“We thank you for responding to that call in your own way, with the many gifts and talents and skills that you bring, and we ask that you will share that with us, that we too might be able to be enriched by the mana of the mahi (work) that you will be undertaking for our people,” Mr Beazley said to Mrs Pereira.

“Whenever we welcome people in this way, it is a matter of tapu meeting tapu. . . and whenever tapu meets tapu, it is a dynamic process. Something happens, it is never neutral. . . That is certainly our prayer this morning that something will happen, good things will happen,” he added.

Vinnies Auckland manager Del Soti told the Otara gathering that, when news came through about Mrs Pereira’s new appointment, “we all froze”. However, Ms Soti said that Mrs Pereira will be a great gift to the diocese.

“The gift of what she has given us is a voice. She rings everyone, she knows everyone — from national networks to ministries.”

Ms Soti added that Mrs Pereira is known for her phrase “come now”, and people she has said that to came straight away to give help.

Friends and family spoke at the Otara gathering of her achievements, her leadership, her authenticity, practicality, fearlessness, and passion, as well as her sense of humour, kindness and her deep Catholic faith and her love for people.

Her son Joseph, a lawyer, said he was proud of his mother, who had instilled in him, from an early age, a sense of service to others. He added, with a smile, that her bark is worse than her bite.

The Auckland diocese vicar for social impact and communication, Loraine Elliott, said that “We are really, really excited to have Bernadette come and join us and also to be based here”.

“I think it is very appropriate that we have a Care for the Poor Advocate based in a place where it is most needed, in the heart of south Auckland. And that is not to say that other areas don’t need it just as much — and I am thinking particularly
of our folk up in Te Tai Tokerau, in the north, and those of our whanau out in the west and central (Auckland), where the need is very strong.”

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Michael Otto

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