Every Friday night, while most of Suva winds down, Sister Teresia Tinanisolo takes her place in the city’s Yellow Zone — not to judge, but to listen.
Behind the Westpac Bank and beneath the parking building near the post office, the 87-year-old sits on a folded chair alongside four women from the Catholic Women’s League of Laucala Bay Parish, reaching out to women of the night through quiet conversation and shared stories.
“Friday night, we go and sit,” she said.
“There’s five of us, four other women from the Catholic Women’s League of Laucala Bay Parish that I belong to.
“So that’s one of the outreach ministries that I do every Friday and I look forward to it.”
As the hours pass, the women they talk with drift away one by one to meet clients.
“We talked and just shared, and then they’re looking for their clients every time, and gradually they leave one by one, and when they empty out, it’s time for us to go home.”
The impact of those conversations has been life changing.
Two women have since left the streets. One told Sister Teresia she wanted to work in housekeeping.
She was taken in for three weeks at the sisters’ house in Nasese to observe her work.
“She’s one of the best cleaners I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s fast cleaning the wall from ceiling to bottom.”
Another woman initially wanted to be a landscaper. Sister Teresia even sought donations at church to buy her a bicycle and a brush cutter. Later, the woman called again.
“Then she rang me to say, Nau Sia. They called me in the street, Nau Sia. That’s my street name. So Nau Sia, I want to come and talk with you.”
The woman later decided to become a farmer instead.
“She said, Nau Sia, when I get my farm going, I invite you to come and see me. She said, I just love the peaceful atmosphere in the place.”
“So, I’m so thrilled that two of our women of the night have now come out.”
Sister Teresia’s weekly outreach is only the latest chapter in a lifetime of service that has stretched across continents.
Born in Suva, she said her name was chosen by a family member.
“My name was given by a cousin by the name Tarisi Tinanisolo. I was baptised a month later at the Cathedral in Suva, given the name Teresia, and that has been my name ever since and as a religious sister,” she said.
Before that, she was known as Sister Sisilia.
“And then when we were allowed to change to our baptismal name, I took my baptismal name, Teresia.”
Her father was Ratu Sikeli Loaloa from Waisomo, Ono, Kadavu, and her mother Keresi Raluve from Narikoso, Ono, Kadavu.
“Both were converts to Catholicism and became wonderful catholic couple and raised six children. I’m the eldest of six.
“All my siblings have died and I’m the only one alive.”
She attended Naidiri Primary School in Kadavu and later Lomary in Serua, but her education was cut short.
“I left school at the age of 14 to care for my siblings, my father had come over to Suva because my mother had been hospitalised — that Christmas Day, she died.”
She cared for her family for two and a half years until her father remarried.
Afterwards, she helped the sisters at their convent, admired their life, and decided to join them. She later joined the sisterhood when she turned 17 years old.
“I joined an international group of women’s religious sisters who worked in 26 countries of the world. So, they told me to go back to school.”
Through correspondence and private tutoring, she continued her studies, later travelling to New Zealand for her novitiate.
After being professed, she was sent to Sydney, where she worked at the convent making altar bread while studying.
She later returned to Fiji, took her final vows, and was then sent to the US to complete three years of secondary schooling in Brighton, Massachusetts.
“After that, I came back to Fiji and then went on to university where I always wanted to graduate as home economics, helping women who have the same stories as I may have had to leave school,” she said.
Her teaching career began at Wairiki Junior Secondary School in Taveuni, where she taught for five years.
“My students scored the highest marks in the whole country in their exams. So that was a booster for my teaching.”
She later taught at St Bede’s College in Savusavu before being appointed a regional leader in Suva and teaching part-time at the then Cathedral Secondary School now Sacred Heart College.
Her missionary work then took her to Jamaica for 16 years.
“They were the rough and hardest years of my life as a sister.”
She worked in Mount Salem, a squatter settlement of about 8000 people living in poverty.
“Their homes we just corrugated iron put together, tiny room, no space in between.
Determined to help, she established skills training programs in cooking, hospitality, bartending and housekeeping.
“Some went on to work in hotels and others went abroad to the US and Canada to make better lives for themselves.
After a decade, she was transferred to Kingston, where she converted an unused factory into a fully-equipped training centre.
When she returned to Fiji at 82, she continued serving — now on Suva’s streets.
Her message to young women remains firm.
“Even though you may not have work, but please don’t take to the street, have somewhere where you can find good, dignified work with dignity, not selling your body to others.
“I turned 87 last week, Monday, November 3, 2025.”
Still, every Friday night, she returns to her spot on the street — listening, encouraging, and quietly changing lives.
