Her Magazine is New Zealand’s only women’s business lifestyle magazine! Her Magazine highlights the achievements of successful and rising New Zealand businesswomen. Her Magazine encourages a healthy work/life balance.
Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/134780
"It's getting them their own cash, helping them to earn a living from what they have access to." She said it… "Finding niche markets like coconut oil and noni juice is the only way the Islands will achieve in the world market. It's about helping rural people, encouraging them to use the natural products around them. It's getting them their own cash, helping them to earn a living from what they have access to." "I firmly believe in organics, in growing and eating good food that benefits the environment, the farmer and the consumer. It is simple really – do we want to eat fertilisers, steroids and pesticides? Our Pacific ancestors, even many of our grandparents never used chemicals but were able to grow abundant crops that were healthy for their bodies." "Our smallness and our isolation from markets means we really have to find ways to work together to stay in the global market place as a player and not just talking about it." w Thanks to Adi's efforts, The Body Shop became a key partner in disseminating Samoan products worldwide. Today, health and beauty items sold in nearly 50 countries use coconut oil produced by Samoan families. And as the market for Samoan exports such as coconut oil, noni juice, bananas, woven mats and tapa cloth grows, Adi is working to bring other Pacific countries in as suppliers, expanding regional economic growth. Though incredibly media shy when it comes to discussing herself, ask Adi about Women in Business Development Inc and she opens up with a rush of ideas for the organization. It is understandable when most of Adi's waking hours are spent working for the organization – a task that has been drawn out over the past few years because mobile phones and the internet now stretch the working day into the night. A day at the office may see the executive director attend back-to-back meetings, travel regionally to consult on country projects, preparing and finalizing numerous reports, conference calling to Hawai'i, London or New Zealand and then in the afternoon, a compulsory brisk stroll on the seawall or Tuanaimato to balance out life's mental stresses. Women in Business has had many successes over the past 20 years culminating in record exports this year of its virgin coconut oil to the United Kingdom and United States, exports of dried bananas to New Zealand, and preparation of markets for coffee, cocoa and vanilla. It also has now a record number of fine mat weavers on its weekly sponsor programme. In 2008, Adi received a New Zealand Prime Minister's Fellowship award, and then two years later was named Savali newspaper's "Person of the Year". While Samoa was celebrating its 50th Independence Anniversary in Apia in 2012, Adi was quietly making her way to Washington DC to receive a global award for economic empowerment. The award was presented by Vital Voices, a Hilary Clinton foundation. As the daughter of a plantation owner from the northern tip of Fiji, Adi was born Adi Maimalaga Chute and grew up on the island of Vanua Levu. After finishing school, she trained and worked as a radiographer in Fiji. It was there she met and married Atoa Tupuola Fanene Simi Tafuna'i and they later moved to Samoa to make a life for themselves. w Source: www.womeninbusiness.ws Source: www.vitalvoices.org W H O 'S W H O 2 0 1 3 | 21