Marlborough aviator helps Pasifika youth soar

“It caught me by surprise, but I’m definitely honoured,” he said.

Sergeant Lal’s volunteer work comes naturally as he sees the people he works with akin to his extended family.

“If I can do it for my family, why can’t I do it for others? I’m just trying to offer opportunities here. I work off the mind-set of, if I could I should.”

After establishing a structure for a local community committee to look after welfare issues and initiatives among Pasifika people, he focussed his attention on sports and wellbeing of the youth in Marlborough. 

He established and runs the Navigator Sports club, which promotes youth involvement in sports, mentorship, coaching and community development.

Sergeant Lal saw a need in the community for involvement with local youth and is supported by his family.

“They understand the goal behind it as well. We do it as a family – my wife is always there for me. But I think being able to think a little bit deeper in the sense of, I’m in a place where I can help where some may not be able to, so why shouldn’t I do it?”

A couple of years ago he saw the local Pasifika children had a lack of activities in the area when the rugby season ended.

“It gave them time to get up to mischief and labelled as trouble-makers. Most Pacific families are first generation, they are either straight from the islands or they haven’t lived in New Zealand for very long.” 

So he directed his attention in their direction and now feels like an “adopted dad” to some of the young people.

“I’m like a taxi driver,” he laughed. “They often have mums and dads who work later on shift work, so I make sure they get home after sports practice before it gets dark.”

One of the opportunities Sergeant Lal has made available for some of the local kids was to take part in a rugby league tournament for under-14 and under-15 teams in Christchurch. Those types of activities needed subs and tournament fees to be paid for. 

“So we do a lot of fundraising. Part of what we do is teach the kids not to depend on handouts, so we enforce the mind-set of working for what you want. For example, as part of fundraising for this tournament, we did a walkathon. We walked up Mt Vernon, which is part of the Wither Hills.

“We got the kids to go out and look for sponsors and each kid raised about $100 – some kids raised more. When we got up the top most of them were feeling the heat, some muscles were hurting. But when we go to Christchurch they know they’ve done the hard work to get there and they won’t let the opportunity slide and will do their best at the tournament.” 

Sergeant Lal uses his sports work as a way to teach the kids some life skills. 

“I’m hard on them if they can’t make it to training. They need to give me a good reason, so they are prepared for when they start working, they know how to communicate. Also, just teaching them to be respectful and being aware of who’s around them and being mindful of the things they say.

“We’ve got quite a few good people around who help out. It takes a village to raise a child and we work quite closely with schools. At times I get called upon to have a chat with some of the kids because they see me as independent from the school and from the household.”

Sergeant Lal is grateful to be able to do his voluntary work and enjoys seeing what the youths get out of it.

“I think my role as an instructor definitely helps and coaching has helped my instructing as well. Being able to understand how people retain information and absorb how they are taught has helped me in both aspects.”