HUMANS OF THE ISLANDS - Rose Fangupo
Rose Fangupo
Fitness Trainer & Owner of 'Coffee Post' in Nuku'alofa
Tonga
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Originally born and bred in South Auckland, my family (husband and kids) have been in Tonga for the last 8 years. I’m a mother of five. We came here for our 10th wedding anniversary and were supposed to only be here for a year but we’re still here 8 years on. My Mum and Dad are also both from Tonga. I'm from a family of 8 and am a middle child. My family have been really supportive of me and my husband, without them we would not have made it this far.
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Running Fitness Training programmes in Tonga
I started doing training because it was something I loved and got paid to do.
While I was having babies I was training. I’ve always been health conscious. My aunty who brought me up had breast cancer and my family has high obesity, diabetes and cancer.
When we came here, there was nothing running at the time. There were fitness classes, but there weren’t group classes and boot camps. It started out just my husband and I, then we branched out from there. We’ve met so many great people that live here, it’s a great way for people to meet each other and break those stereotypes. We started out just doing group training with friends and acquaintances, then it got bigger with the church group we started. We’ve been running for 5 years this year.
It’s opened up doors for Tongan’s here, making them realize they can push themselves and they can run and be fit. The first year we started, everyone would be sore and go to the doctors thinking there was something wrong. It’s about educating and being consistent.
Now we have a group of trainers, helping with admin and supporting the participants that come in. It’s been a learning curve, there are a lot of things to work on, but we’re taking it step by step. Five years on and we’re still breaking habits. Island people are fairly healthy, it’s just the Western influence and they need guidelines.
Coffee Post in Nuku'alofa
Our point of difference is that we offer healthy food options.
We have fresh sandwiches, salads, muffins and loaves that replace sugar with honey. Our smoothies are all natural ingredients. Our green smoothie has taken us about a year to tweak and we use local ingredients. We don’t do fried food and we don’t serve massive portions.
This is for locals, and what they get here is different to everywhere else. It’s not as fatty and there’s no burgers or chips.
In the beginning, because the café was new, people didn’t get the concept. You get the people thinking “what the heck”…initially people would ask for burgers, chips and ice cream. But because they know what we do now… we do as we teach. It’s showing locals that this is simple, tasty and healthy.
The locals are getting into it and knowing what is good quality and what’s not. Now it's good to have that reputation of having healthy choices. We always try to cater to people and give them options.
How has your upbringing and culture shaped you into the woman you are today?
It’s played a massive role. It’s not until you come here and you’re actually living here, as an islander in the islands … compared to being an islander living in New Zealand where that mentality of “anything is possible” is there. Being brought up to work hard and bringing that here and seeing the potential, it gives you confidence. Anything is possible, there are no barriers.
Who are your biggest inspirations and why?
My mum and dad and knowing what they gave up for us. My dad works hard and he’s a good man. Knowing what its like to live here and what it would have been like in his day. He was entrepreneurial, everything like I am, but gave everything up here to move to NZ and start again for us kids. To give us a good education and all of that.
We’re looking at expanding; I can’t get into too much detail. There’s nothing really for kids and because we brought our kids here, we’ve started tag and swimming. Our passion is to help out young primary school kids learn skills, so we want to develop that. There’s a lot of stuff we can do, but it’s the manpower or having people who want to help without a secret agenda. For me there’s always room to grow, its endless.
