A YOUNG boy who was once considered a loner and a nomad moving from house to house in Nairai, Lomaiviti in search for leftovers is now among the few Fijians who have earned themselves high qualifications — a Doctor of Philosophy.
Dr Asaeli Tuibeqa wants to share his story as an inspiration to many other Fijians, who are studying or maybe going through hardship in life, that you can achieve anything if you have the will to do it.
Dr Tuibeqa began his journey to success although he was not a bright student of Queen Victoria School during his high school days.
He was even laughed at by his classmates when he told his accounting teacher that he wanted to be enrolled at the University of the South Pacific after leaving school because they knew he was a below average student.
His accounting mark for the University Entrance Examination was 36 and his total for the best four subjects was 200 out of 400. Last week it was different. His classmates applauded him.
Dr Tuibeqa was the first from his class to receive a Doctor of Philosophy at the Flemington Race Course in Melbourne, Australia.
“It’s destiny mate,” Dr Tuibeqa said.
“We are the product of a successful reproduction process. Out of the 100 million ‘warriors’ sent out only one is able to complete the process.
“We are the product of that success. It is inbuilt in us. It is also sustainable because it is rooted in the Creator”.
In sharing his story of success with The Sunday Times, he said the journey to discovering success could be painful and he felt like all the forces in the society wanted to steal, kill and destroy every aspects of his life.
Being a person, who was made redundant three times, terminated once and received over 50 unsuccessful job applications and was someone who was given a 35 per cent salary reduction in the Office of the Prime Minister prior to the change at the helm in December 2006, Dr Asaeli believed that was not the end of life for him so he kept driving, motivating himself that he could do better in life..
“I shed tears in that new wing praying for justice.
“I had to drive a taxi to support my family. Painful indeed but the learning in hindsight is enormous.
“Often I regard myself as a survivor. Among peers, I am perceived as a hardworking person though I wanted to be identified among development economists — given the MA in development economics I received from Kent University, UK. Being a development economist, you are a jack-of-all-trades and a master of nothing — that was what my research supervisor told me once.”
The Nairai man once worked as a teacher/tutor in accounting, maths, economics, economic statistics and econometrics in secondary schools and at USP.
He had also worked as a small business trainer, financial adviser, policy designer, bank manager, financial controller, product/project development analyst, researcher and a marketing consultant.
“My paediatrician wife once remarked; “you are everywhere and going nowhere; perhaps you need to get up after dreaming.”
In 2010, he was among a group of FDB managers on a field visit to Saraswati College to view an innovative business project incubated at the school.
After the presentation the project co-ordinator challenged the group with this quote: “When I was homeless you held a seminar to discuss the cause; when I was hungry you sent scores of people to investigate why; when I was ill you conducted a research into the reasons and the possible solutions; but I am still homeless, hungry and ill and you haven’t done anything”.
“The scars of living in tough and harsh conditions I still carry. Some of the greatest lessons in life were learnt during those trying times.
“I learnt to live ‘underwater’.
“Today, those lessons continue to shape and reshape my values, interests and motivations. They become pillars in my quest to realise my dream — a dream — to build a lifeline for people in the sea of poverty using livelihood creation and small business.”
Dr Asaeli believed this was his calling and destiny: to walk on the ground among the poor and the voiceless in rural Pacific island communities.
He is also motivated by the wise saying of King Solomon- “He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and He will pay back what he has given”.
“Payback is not the motivating factor here but the heart to act on behalf of the poor and powerless.
“A PhD in small business and entrepreneurship in my view provides a genuine platform in the preparation work. I am not there yet.
“The walk on the ground is just beginning.”
One of his own experiences, which influenced the decision for a PhD in small business was his involvement in the monitoring of the Fiji government 29 affirmative action programs in the Office of the Prime Minister where he was specifically assigned to a small business program which enabled the iTaukei to actively participate in business.
He shared that while the Government had the political will, the legal, policy and budgetary support, the take up rate by the target group was unexpectedly low.
This, he said raised several questions: What went wrong? Did the program fail? Why did it fail? How could the program be improved? These questions brought me to, and kept me motivated, in the small business research.
Small business, he said is an overly researched area, however, very little account is documented on small Pacific island countries in terms of their support structure and systems of care.
“Not many researchers have ‘walked on the ground’ or sailed the uncharted waters of the South Pacific Ocean.
“I dare to take the PhD journey albeit with a lack of navigational instruments — the lack of statistical data, limited small business literature on Pacific islands countries and limited research funding.
“I enrolled at Victoria University Melbourne after almost 20 years since I last attended university.
“The transition from corporate to academia was overwhelming. You lose a lot of sleep searching in the university database for source materials and hours of reading and making summary notes.”
The Fiji National University Manager Development also thanked the opportunity from the Ministry of iTaukei Affairs and the Tertiary and Loans Scholarship Board (TLSB) for giving him the chance to replenish his academic life so that he maybe of help to many other people in society.
