Board of Directors

Lorna Eastman, a Certified Financial Planner, provides financial consultation for aboriginal organizations, individuals, corporations, and the public sector. With a specialty in pensions, Lorna assisted Aboriginal Non-Profit Agencies in British Columbia to develop a pension strategy for over 300 employers in the sector. Further to this assignment, the Aboriginal Officers Association of Canada contracted Lorna to research and to write an Income Tax Manual with a First Nations Focus on Income Tax Filing. This report highlighted the ability to access eligible benefits as a result of tax filing. These benefits include the Canada Child Benefit, GST Rebates, Guaranteed Income Supplement and Canada Learning Bonds. This resulted in further research into Canada Learning Bonds, Group Registered Retirement Savings Plans and Volunteer Income Tax Clinics from a First Nations perspective.

Lorna has extended family in New Zealand, travels to New Zealand each year with her Kiwi husband and has been welcomed onto several Marai’s in New Zealand. Lorna was adopted into the Papariki Whanau on the Whanganui River and continues to maintain close ties there.

Lorna grew up in a large farm family in the Souris river valley in Manitoba and attended a one room country school. Her father’s family came to Manitoba in the late 1800s from the Orkney Islands and her mother’s family came from England in the early 1900’s. Her large extended family continues to farm in Manitoba.

Sean has over seven years of non-profit Board of Directors experience. He has extensive international development and United Nations Development Programme experience across the South Pacific, having spent more than ten years in the region. He also has over sixteen years of experience with Fortune 500, private and public sector consulting.

Today, Sean resides in Victoria, B.C. brokering commercial real estate across Canada. He holds multiple Master’s degrees and believes technology initiatives should be available to everyone in the world.

Dr. Boutilier established the South Pacific People’s Foundation, the forerunner of the Pacific People’s Partnership, in the 1970s and served as the president of SPPF for many years. He is currently Special Advisor (Policy) at Maritime Forces Pacific (MARPAC), the Canadian Navy formation on the West Coast. He joined MARPAC in 1996 and travels widely on behalf of the Navy, primarily in Asia.

He received his PhD from the University of London (UK) in 1969 and taught at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, from 1969 to 1971 before taking up an appointment at Royal Roads Military College in Victoria, British Columbia. He served on the staff of RRMC until 1995 as a professor of history and Dean of Arts. He was an adjunct professor of Pacific Studies at the University of Victoria during the same period. He was instrumental in the establishment of Royal Roads University.

Now retired, Art spent most of his life as a photographer and filmmaker. As a filmmaker, he worked with a number of voluntary organizations in several countries in Africa, as well as Pakistan, Egypt, the Philippines and Canada. In East Africa he was involved in filming “Mama June,” a film about a Canadian teacher who contracted AIDS and returned to Tanzania to work with AIDS organizations there as well as a series of short videos on AIDS projects in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. The film was nominated for a Juno Award.

Art initiated and co-produced the film “Killer Whale and Crocodile” about an arts exchange between an Iatmul carver from Papua New Guinea and a Coast Salish carver. He has also worked on training manuals, educational kits and study guides and taught a photography course as well as a seminar on photographic technique.

In the voluntary sector, Art was a member of the board of the Victoria AIDS Resource and Community Services Society for many years and served as chairman of the board for most of those years. In the last few years, while living in Ottawa, Art volunteered at a local food bank.

In retirement, Art recently completed a book titled “Adherents of the Higher Law” about the efforts of the members of a small college community in Ohio in the battle to end slavery in the United States.

Ruby Kafalava is originally from Tonga. She met her husband in Canada, and decided to take up a permanent residency here. She loves dancing and music, and started dancing when she was little. She was with a dance group that travelled through Fiji , Niue and across Tonga for 5 years. They used dance as a way to express messages about equality, racism, domestic violence, bullying and drugs. etc. She is now involved with keeping her culture, language and traditions alive in Canada through her participation within Pearls of The South Pacific; an authentic cultural group based on Vancouver Island. She is also a mother of two young girls and works as a professional caregiver. Ruby’s home is her life and she loves getting the opportunity to give back to her community.

Originally from the island of Molokai in Hawaii, Tierra lives and breathes aloha in all that she does. She travelled to BC right out of high school in 2008 and successfully completed a Bachelor of Commerce in Human Resources from the UBC Sauder School of Business as well as a Tourism Management Diploma from Capilano University.

Seeking a similar island culture like her Hawaiian roots, Tierra moved to Victoria from Vancouver in 2014 and has since earned her place within the HR community and within the Tourism/Hospitality industry. She recently was awarded the 2018 HR Rising Star Award presented by CPHR BC & Yukon and was also recognized by HR Director Canada as one of the 2019 Top 20 HR Rising Stars.  Tierra currently works as the HR Manager at Vancouver Island Brewing.

Tierra is very passionate about her upbringing in Hawaii and about sharing that aloha with all those around her. She is a Polynesian dancer with the Pearls of the South Pacific dance group in Victoria. She has also been involved in supporting several local indigenous events and loves to volunteer her time where she can!

Professor of Anthropology, Carol is an expert in her field on the African and Pacific Islands. She was awarded fellowships based on her Pacific research at the Smithsonian Institute and the Sainsbury Research Centre.

Along with teaching courses at the University of British Columbia (UBC), the University of Victoria, and the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Dr. Mayer has served on various museum councils, been a jury member for numerous granting agencies, is an expert examiner for the Cultural Property Review Board and is a reviewer and editor for several publications. Holding degrees from UBC, Cambridge University, and the university of Leicester, she has delivered papers at several conferences and been published widely on topics relating to museum practice.

Dr. Mayer also publishes exhibition catalogues, articles and books on various areas of material culture. Her most recent book (2013) tells the story of an important reconciliation ceremony on the Island of Erromango, Vanuatu. Her involvement in this ceremony earned her the 30th Anniversary of Independence medal for her cultural contributions to the Republic of Vanuatu.

She has recently completed a chapter for a book on missionaries in the Pacific and is working on a book about the Museum of Anthropology (MOA)’s founding collection from the Pacific Islands. She currently serves as the vice president of the North American chapter of the Pacific Arts Association.

Sunshine’s maternal family hails from Fiji and the Solomon Islands with family spread across the South Pacific. Her paternal family are Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Her mother’s teachings of Fijian Talanoa (story-telling), spirituality, ancestral strength, and honouring the land as a leader, have inspired her to pursue a path of upholding the rights of Indigenous peoples and the environment. Through her reverence for her Indigenous Pasifika heritage as well as the Indigenous peoples and the land of the Pacific North West on whose lands she was born, Sunshine has made it her goal to strengthen the human rights of our Indigenous relations on Turtle Island, where she is so grateful to live.

Sunshine was born and raised in the activist community of Kitsilano in Vancouver, on Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw territory, where she learned that education, awareness, and action were keys to supporting the roots of change in her local and global community. Sunshine received her law degree with honours in the UK and her Master’s in Law degree with a focus on human rights and migration law. She wrote her Master’s thesis on extractive projects on ancestral Indigenous lands in Canada, and focussed on the overlap and disconnect between Canadian law, International Law, and Indigenous Legal Traditions.

Sunshine currently works to uphold Indigenous rights in the criminal justice system as a Gladue Report Writer, while studying to become an accredited lawyer in Canada, and volunteering on a bi-monthly basis at pro-bono legal clinics in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Gladue reports are a restorative justice tool that aim to ameliorate the dire overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system, by incorporating Indigenous history and upholding Indigenous legal traditions and healing practices into sentencing. When an Indigenous person is convicted of a crime, they’re entitled to a Gladue Report which provides the sentencing judge with (1) the individual’s life story, contextualized within the systemic intergenerational impacts from colonization and (2) a healing plan with restorative justice sentencing options, and a plan for the individual’s future that incorporates their needs and goals.

In her free time, Sunshine loves cooking with her family, being on the ocean, reading, and playing Mario kart with her friends. Her goals for 2020 and 2021 include being called to the Bar and adopting a dog.

Sunshine is honoured to take part in the inspiring work that PPP carries out and looks forward to learning and growing with the PPP community through our domestic and international initiatives and our educational programs.

Rachel is second generation Chinese Canadian and currently living in Tkaronto on the land of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant.

Rachel received her Bachelor of Science from Queen’s University and Master of Marine Management from Dalhousie University. In the decade following, she worked in oceans conservation with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Canada, Solomon Islands and Fiji. Her experiences in rights-based fisheries management and climate change risk mitigation in the South Pacific led her to the Pacific Peoples’ Partnership community.

Currently, Rachel is Executive Director of the Bike Brigade – a non-profit organization managing 800+ volunteer cyclists delivering food and other essential supplies during COVID-19. She is also the Founder of Evoke Creatives – a social enterprise with a mission to  bring more racialized youth to the frontlines of the environment movement through the arts. With a lens on racial equity and environmental conservation, Rachel continually seeks to understand collaborative survival as a way to transform life beyond capitalism and industrialism. She aims to support PPP in leveraging the power of the arts and culture to elevate Pacific peoples as leaders of this transformation.

Valerie was born in Amerika Samoa as a proud afatasi. She grew up on the island flying back and forth to Savai’i visiting her mom’s side of the family and spending her days next to her grandmother who taught her the Samoan ways and culture. On her 8th birthday, her father moved their family to Canada for a better chance at life to make a difference in his wife and two daughters’ lives.

Valerie spent most of her years playing multiple different sports and found a strong passion in rugby where she met Muavae. Mua was a great man to look up to and to seek advice as Valerie grew up into the young woman she is. With the help and coaching from Muavae, he helped prepare her for high-level rugby tournaments and trained her physically and mentally to take on representing team Canada for three seasons. Unfortunately, due to injuries, Valerie’s rugby career ended earlier than expected.

As Valerie’s main reason for moving to Victoria was to train and play rugby, she found love and decided to stay on the island and build a new life. Since then she’s had different jobs building experience as a Business Development Agent and a car dealership downtown Victoria and is now working at Service BC with goals to work up to a higher position. When looking for jobs, Valerie always wanted to do something to make a change in people’s lives. When Muavae approached her to become one of the Board Members for the Pacific People’s Partnership, she didn’t hesitate to say yes! Valerie has a strong passion for making a change and is very excited for this opportunity to help the Pacific Islands and First Nations Community.