Homeless kid turns life around

For nearly a year as a teenager, Mataiasi Yaya Tagicakibau slept at the Suva bus stand, washed his school uniform at the Olympic Pool and went to sleep hungry. 

Decades later, he is giving back to his community and the people who call the streets home. 

Earlier this week, Fiji Sun joined him as he showed the places in downtown Suva where he struggled to survive and where he found relief. 

At 41 years of age, Mr Tagicakibau can still vividly remember life in the city streets. 

He found refuge and comfort there after his relationship with his father broke down around the time he was in Form Five (year 11). At the time, he was a student at Marist Brothers High School, and with no money, he had to adapt quickly.

He often slept on a piece of cardboard outside the Telecom Fiji office building, beside other street dwellers and on the benches at the Suva bus stand.

"This was a comfort place for me, even though I knew I wouldn't get anywhere close to eight hours of sleep," he said, looking at the post boxes outside Telecom. 

"It was safe. But it held so much fear and hate for me."

Mr Tagicakibau told a few people about his situation, who went on to inform his father. He refused to tell anyone else about his predicament, fearing the consequences that might follow. 

His teachers at Marist had no clue their student was homeless, going hungry and washing their dirty uniforms at a public pool facility. 

"I went back to the school last month to check if they had records of me as a student," he said.

"Unfortunately, there were none." 

Reflecting on the difficult choices he made, Mr Tagicakibau said he once blamed his parents and even God, but later realised those were his own choices. 

Those choices included carrying a few belongings in a training bag and moving from location to location around the city. 

When asked if he played any sports at Marist, he said, "No. I was a nobody at that school."

Lifting Others Up

Wedged between the Suva Municipal Market and the bus stand are small eateries where patrons can buy food.  

Mr Tagicakibau recalled standing at the entrance to an eatery, waiting to be noticed by the cooks there so they could offer him a hot meal. 

“It was survival for me. I would stand and wait, hoping to get something to eat,” he said. 

He often waited up to 15 minutes for a bowl of rourou or curry.  

“This place brings back a lot of difficult memories of trying to survive and hoping my parents, siblings or relatives could see me - unfortunately, that never happened.” 

Mataiasi speaking to a shoe shiner.

As he walked through alleyways and past storefronts, Mr Tagicakibau stopped multiple times to greet shoe shiners and street dwellers he knew and had tried helping in the past. 

"People like shoe shiners want to progress. They want to get out of that situation, and some of them have families, but they don't know how," he explained.

"I can't give them advice, so I share my story about how I got out of the streets."

After securing a job at McDonald's in downtown Suva, he was even more determined to prove to his father that he could finally get off the streets and make something of himself. For a few years, Mr Tagicakibau worked hard and found people who could keep him on track.  

When he got married the first time in his early twenties, he felt like everything was finally falling into place. He didn’t slow down.  

“I kept pushing myself to be better. I told myself I’d grab those opportunities in front of me and build up my work ethic,” he said. 

Mr Tagicakibau joined the Fiji Corrections Service’s Yellow Ribbon Project as an Institution Rehabilitation Officer.  

He spent five years at the Fiji Corrections Service, and that experience prompted him to help other young men living on the streets.  

“I have a responsibility to get them all out. We can’t stop this [problem], but we can try to reduce it,” he added. 

Today, he delivers free cooking classes for children. 

With his wife and four children, Mr Tagicakibau also runs a small business, selling cooked meals, such as lovo food.

However, his focus remains on community work and growing his social advocacy reach on social media. He aims to give others a second chance at life, a chance he was given all those years ago.

Feedback: jernese.macanawai@fijisun.com.fj