VILI FIFITA

This is Vili Fifita. He is a glorious human being.

What I love about Vili is that he is soft and strong, at the same time. Strong in his conviction for kindness, strong in his enormous Tongan body, and strong in his values. His heart is worn beautifully on his sleeve and generosity shines on his face. His voice is soft and never raised; his gentle tone speaks volumes, and he is always kind.

He is a 22-year-old gentleman. When you meet him you somehow understand that he has remarkable parents. He has a warm heart and a gentle smile. Vili sings like Beyoncé and snores like a miracle. Vili is a Kiwi but he has a Tongan heart. If you spend time with Vili you will laugh a lot, from your belly, his joy is infectious and he is magnetic and it is fun, fun, fun!

Vili is wide. He has wide feet and a wide smile. He is physically wide width-wise and he is charging into life at full force with his mind and heart wide open.

Vili has a gift in the way that he makes others feel. He is a leader in the truest form. He is not only comfortable in his own skin, he has a superpower that helps others to thrive in theirs. He seeks out the quiet ones, the different ones, the nervous ones, and he draws out their uniqueness. It is a gift to behold. This is deliberate and it is extraordinary to watch such a generous act. He told me, “I love who I am and I want others to feel that about themselves too’.

Vili loves ice cream. When he was one year old he sustained third-degree burns that involved multiple surgeries to repair. Every time he had surgery, he got ice cream. The fact that Vili now associates ice cream with joy, rather than trauma, gives you an inkling of how he frames his world. The experts call this post-traumatic growth. The skin-graft scars are a curious patchwork of brown skin on white skin, battle scars worn proudly and an episode that Vili says helped shape who he is.

In the future, Vili wants to become a firefighter and eventually work in Search and Rescue. Helping people not get burnt, and helping find people, right where they are. Brilliant. Currently, some of his leadership work is with Red Earth, where together, we took 18 young people to live with the First Nations Aboriginal people in Cape York, Australia. We drove a long way into the Homelands. As I drove, Vili fell snored in the passenger seat. Even his subconscious is kind; when I sneezed, he said “Bless you” in his sleep.

In one week Vili showed me what unconditional kindness looks like. He taught me you can be young and wise, and quietly powerful by being fiercely authentic. It has been a supreme privilege to eat ice cream with this young man. The future is in good hands.