Saving Samoa House on Karangahape Rd | STILL HERE S2 | Episode 2
Samoa House hides in plain sight on Auckland’s Karangahape Road. It was built with funds raised by the Samoa House Appeal Fund and opened in 1979 as a response to the Dawn Raids.
The site includes the first fale built outside of Samoa and previously housed the Samoan consulate. The future of Samoa House - in particular, the Fale - is uncertain as Pacific communities groups no longer have direct or priority access to the space.
This episode of STILL HERE explores the future of Samoa amid a rapidly gentrifying Karangahape road.
“It’s important that we move quickly to restore the mana of this fale,” Bonni Tamati, operations manager of Samoa House Library, says.
STILL HERE is a love letter to our inner-city Auckland Pasifika community. Since the 1950s, the Pasifika community has cultivated a unique Central Auckland identity that many of the community’s youth proudly embrace; both as an act of resistance from ongoing gentrification and as an unapologetic reminder that they and their families are Still Here.
Made with the support of NZ On Air.
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