PASI badge

This badge was made to help raise funds for the Teresia Teaiwa Memorial Scholarship Fund. It is both a memorial badge and an acknowledgment of a significant legacy in education in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific.

Teresia Teaiwa (1968–2017) was of Banaban, I-Kiribati and African American heritage. She was born in Hawaii, raised in Fiji, studied in the United States, and settled in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Teaiwa founded the Pacific Studies programme (PASI) at Victoria University of Wellington in 2000, eventually becoming the director of Va’aomanū Pasifika (a unit comprising Pacific Studies and Samoan Studies), and posthumously Associate Professor.

Teaiwa was a renowned scholar and poet, and influential throughout the Pacific region. She was known internationally for her ground-breaking work in Pacific Studies, including contemporary issues in Fiji, militarism and gender, feminism and women’s activism in the Pacific, and contemporary Pacific arts and culture.

She was awarded for her teaching in the classroom, including introducing successful initiatives such as ‘Akamai’ for 100-level students where they could present their learnings through creative interpretation. Hundreds of students treasured her nurture and investment in their learning, and benefitted from her focus on indigenous knowledge and decolonising education.

The scholarship

Teaiwa believed that scholarships made a real difference in making the university more accessible to Pacific students, and to increase the number of students continuing on to postgraduate studies. Before her death, she gifted $100,000 to realise her dream. Extensive fundraising and donations brought the fund to more than $280,000. Each year two scholarships are awarded (one undergraduate and one postgraduate).

This badge was sold in New Zealand and Fiji (Teaiwa worked at the University of the South Pacific in the 1990s). Badges were given to all the donors to the scholarship fund.

Design

The design of the badge was based on a well-known photograph of Teaiwa (by university staff photographer Robert Cross) which showed one of her typical hairstyles and Pacific earrings (she would always wear at least one thing from the Pacific every day). Behind her is a rebbelib, a Marshallese navigational stick chart she owned. The silhouette concept was inspired by iconic images of American activist Angela Davis with her afro hair style. Davis was also one of Teaiwa’s academic supervisors and a friend.