Health promoter animated by Bahá’í principles

Showing the fruitfulness of drawing on Bahá’í principles as inspiration for public service, Mr Sione Tu’itahi has been elected as the new President of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE). Sione’s tireless work in the health field, which has led to his taking the IUHPE role, is deeply informed by his commitment to learning from the Bahá’í Teachings and from the experience of the Bahá’í community.

Sione has been a Bahá’í for many years. In the past he has served as an Auxiliary Board member and is currently a member of the National Spiritual Assembly. Born in Tonga, he moved to Aotearoa 28 years ago.

As reported on the website of the Health Promotion Forum of New Zealand: “The first Indigenous person to hold the position, Mr Tu’itahi was named during the 24th IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion held in Montreal and online from May 15-19. Mr Tu’itahi is also the first Pasifika and first Tongan and New Zealander to take the role.”

According to its website, the IUHPE “is a global professional non-governmental organisation dedicated to health promotion around the world. For more than 65 years, IUHPE has operated an independent, global, professional network of people and institutions committed to improving the health and wellbeing of the people through education, community action and the development of healthy public policy.”

In Aotearoa, Sione is the Executive Director of the Health Promotion Forum of New Zealand | Runanga Whakapiki Ake i te Hauora o Aotearoa, having worked there since 2005. He came to the fields of public health and education from a background in journalism and broadcasting, followed by more than a decade in a role leading the development of Pacific capacity at Massey University, and six years as Pacific Manager at the Auckland Regional Public Health Service. His service in the education and public health sectors has overlapped, and he continues to make contributions in both. In 2019 he was awarded the New Zealand Public Health Champion Award by the Public Health Association of New Zealand.

Sione is also the secretary of the Tongan Interfaith Leadership Network in Aotearoa or Taakanga ‘a e Kau Takilotu Tonga ‘i Aotearoa which has been extremely influential and busy during the Coronavirus pandemic in assisting the Tongan community to reach high levels of vaccination against Covid-19.

An example of contributions that Sione is able to make to discourse in his field is an article he co-authored, titled “Waiora: the importance of Indigenous worldviews and spirituality to inspire and inform Planetary Health Promotion in the Anthropocene”. The article highlights the question of achieving planetary health as the most significant challenge for health promotion in the next 70 years.

Other diverse research interests have prompted Sione to write on issues such as problem gambling, the preservation of Pacific languages, cultural loss by migrants, and how alcohol policy and public health promotion should be adapted by cultural preferences.

Some of Sione’s more personal reflections on the people and principles he holds dear are expressed in the form of poetry. In 2021 he published Talia Mei Loto (The Answer is Within), a poetry book touching on Covid-19, planetary health, unity, equality, collaboration and other themes. Writing and publishing Talia Mei Loto was a way of commemorating the centenary of the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. As Sione wrote in the book’s introduction:

While the health of the planet and the wellbeing of humanity were the dominant idea, it was the wisdom of my greatest educator, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who enlightened my mind and heart when I reflected on some of the global challenges that I mentioned in my poems.