At 27-years-old Fila Fuamatu was ready to change the world.
In 2006, the New-Zealand born teacher moved to Samoa to do just that, but things didn't quite go as she had planned.
"I went to teach in Samoa with a friend and we were helping a Bible school at the time, but while I was there I was looking for a touch team to play with," she said.
"One of the girls at the National University said to come play for the team and I ended up playing and I got selected to play in the women's and mixed team at the 2007 South Pacific Games."
From teaching in classrooms to training on the paddock.
Fila Fuamatu strategizing from the side line. Photo: Samoa Touch Rugby Incorporated
Sport wasn't foreign for Fila, in fact she thrived in it during her school years. But growing up in a religious home meant selection for representative teams and games on Sunday was never an option.
"I've always enjoyed playing sports and my school life was really a place where I kind of thrived in sport, but I guess the focus was wherever we go for church, that's what we would do."
"I'd make some of the rep teams but then I couldn't really go serious because we weren't allowed to play on Sundays, so it kind of was like the thing I loved but I didn't take serious until later in life when I moved to Samoa."
Fuamatu went on to captain the women's team that year where they placed second, and first in the mixed touch rugby tournament.
She said it was a life changing experience, but one that made more of an impact off the field, than on it.
Samoa's 2013 touch rugby open women's team. Photo: Samoa Touch Rugby Incorporated
"I remember from that experience saying to my friend I wanted to be a PE teacher, and she said to me 'why be a PE teacher when you can change the sport of a nation', and that's when I ended up working for the Ministry of Sports and Culture as a Sports Officer," she explained.
"For me, representing my country that was a dream... but working at the Ministry, that's when my eyes opened up to how sports could be used as the vehicle for so much more."
Fuamatu ran several sports programmes in Samoa which sought to foster a healthy lifestyle in school children.
She helped put the curriculum together for the country and worked alongside community villages to introduce different ways sport could be used to promote and have discussions around health and wellbeing.
But she wasn't ready to hang up her boots just yet.
She went on to play for Samoa's women's national rugby sevens and touch rugby teams at the 2009 Pacific Mini Games in the Cook Islands, and then in 2011 a totally new sport.
The 2011 Samoa Powerlifting team. Photo: Samoa Powerlifting Federation
"One of my colleagues, he was doing powerlifting and said they were looking for girls because they needed a girl to make the team, so he told me to come and if I could lift a certain weight then I could be in the team," she recalled.
"I went and did the test and then I found out I was strong and so I kept going and then I lifted their criteria [over 100kgs] to be able to get in and keep training with them."
She became Samoa's first official female powerlifter to make the team and won silver at the 2011 Pacific Games in New Caledonia. She qualified for the Pacific Games again for the 2015 Port Moresby competition, where she won a silver medal in the under-84 kg category for the second time.
For Fila, playing sport opened a world of opportunities, and in 2014 she returned to New Zealand to study public health.
"Going to Samoa I thought you know, I could change the world as a teacher, in the islands, but then coming back I think the Pacific region opened my eyes that we can do a lot through community development but in a more intentional way."
Now she's leading the Sport and Movement portfolio at The Cause Collective, a social change organization focused on the wellbeing of Pacific peoples in South Auckland communities.
In her work she's advocating for a change in the sports sector, as there are little to no locally led programmes or movement initiatives funded by Sport New Zealand, to getting the largest population of obese people in the country healthy and active.
Fila Fuamatu is leading the Sport and Movement portfolio at The Cause Collective. Photo: RNZ / Talei Anderson
One way of doing this is through The Village Games movement: a platform for Māori and Pacific people in South Auckland to celebrate their culture and identity by playing their traditional village games.
"To get our people moving we have got to involve our culture. It's a good way to teach culture and identity and it is a good way to bring our people together."
"We want to create that movement to celebrate, amplify and validate our ways of moving, so these are our traditional ways of moving and this is the platform in which to start having the conversations with our people in terms of what do they want to do."
Celebrated in conjunction with each Pacific language week, The Village Games movement is a way to begin conversations with Māori and Pacific people to learn about their lived experiences in Aotearoa and the barriers they face to being active.
She said it's been a special experience for community leaders and Pasifika families to witness.
"It's been really awesome and a special experience because we found that some people were concerned that the knowledge [about traditional games] wasn't being passed down."
"But now instead of mainstream creating the programmes, the approach we've done is like a tester to show we as Pasifika can do this too. We can work with the community, work with our cultural advisors, our Pasifika leaders, we know how to approach and engage with our people and that means these other [local based] organizations can too."
She hopes Sport New Zealand can give back to grass roots, where Pasifika people who have the heart to get their communities healthy and well, are working together and with no funding to fight obesity.
