The former Waitakian of the Year and Queen’s Service Medal recipient (for services to Pacific health and community) became the first Pasifika councillor for the Waitaki District Council in 2019.
She is also general manager for Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group (OPICG) and is serving her first term as deputy mayor and a second term as a councillor.
Cr Halalele has announced she will not be running for mayor in October’s local body elections, but she will stand again as a councillor for the Oamaru ward of the district council.
There was "synergy" in her two roles, she said.
"It’s something that I’ve been weighing up just in terms of my capacity, because I’m so busy here with my work with the trust, but it’s a really great correlation in terms of both of my roles.
"There’s a strategic opportunity at council. I can feed into what the community needs are because I work in that space and it makes sense."
The trust was in the early stages of building a "learning hub" in the old Literacy Aotearoa building in Coquet St that would provide educational workforce development opportunities, she said.
Cr Halalele also continues health outreach in the community with a nurse-led clinic supporting the OPICG team from a clinical perspective.
"We employ a nurse one day a week [doing] screenings, immunisations, diabetes and heart, cardiac checks."
Another trust focus was helping families into affordable housing, whether it was social, community housing or home ownership, Cr Halalele said.
"We brought [rugby star] Mils Muliaina down with his team to help put Pasifika people into their own homes. In the last year, we’ve put about 19 families in their first own homes."
Supporting "inter-generational changes" to help sustain and provide opportunities for Pasifika and the wider community was the trust’s goal, as part of a national Pacific collective.
Cr Halalele’s commitments also include being a social work lecturer part-time at the University of Otago.
"It is a juggle, you know, but it’s a good juggle.
"It’s around where I can make the biggest impact, just to advocate and lobby for the changes that the community needs to see."
Her entire career in community development was about ensuring social services were well-supported, she said.
Cr Halalele values the "privilege" of being at the council table as a Samoan woman with 17 years’ experience as a corrections officer and a registered social worker.
"I bring a different lens to it. There’s a cultural capacity and capability that is there that I know no-one else on the table will have. For example, when we’re looking at developing different forms of policies or procurement policy or what the social return on investment and the broader outcomes are — and how is that going to impact on Maori, Pacific and migrant communities."
Cr Halalele said meeting the diverse needs for the "growing migrant community" was something she loved contributing to, and the broader needs of the community.
"I love the strategy work that we can do at local level and then how we can amplify that at regional and national levels."
