28/10/2025
Women's Fund Fiji kickstarted their Annual Reflection yesterday at The Pearl Resort with a powerful call to action by Fiji Women's Rights Movement Executive Director Nalini Singh, urging feminist movements to reimagine funding and build sustainable futures for all.
RPF Interim CEO Asaeli Sinusetaki was invited to join the plenary following that opening speech to talk about what sustainability means to RPF in the most practical way. In his statement, he acknowledged the great work that was started by the late CEO and founder, Isikeli Vulavou, whose vision on visibility and advocacy established RPF as an organization that champions human rights. That work opened doors for the organization that even during the most difficult times, when the organization was struggling financially, those work continued to open doors for new opportunities.
When talking about the risks around funding uncertainty, he was very opened with the RPF situation and shared the challenges around loss of staff, inability to meet compliance obligations and reduced capacity for service delivery.
On being resilient, the Interim CEO acknowledged RPF’s greatest asset, the Hub members whom in the face of adversity have continued to rise above the challenges by showing up, even when there was no money. He shared the story of how RPF has organised and participated in 15 HIV Outreach Campaigns this year alone, and of these 15, the members turned up to 12 knowingly that they won’t receive a stipend.
The Interim CEO also acknowledged Pacific Sexual and Gender Diversity Network - PSGDN for continuing to provide office space when there was no funds for rent, and the continuing support by the Board Secretary, Christopher Lutukivuya, who continued to provide guidance after the passing of the late CEO and founder, IV.
The support by Women’s Fund Fiji was also recognised as a key contribution to the organization’s sustainability. He mentioned that for the the longest time, WFF became the organisation that truly reached out to RPF to help with the organisational capacity development, and that their support on the audit, strategic plan, annual reporting and Human Resources helped RPF to secure additional funding to continuing to develop and strengthened these key tools of organisational capacity.
Because he spoke about the importance of collaboration and openly expressed the gaps that RPF has, he concluded with the statement, “Being resilient is about recognizing your limitations and advocating for other to take up space you can’t take”. He said that true resilience is not just about individual strength, but about building a strong, supportive community where members can acknowledge their limits and help one another flourish.
and in action.
