Great work should be shared, so I’m here to share the wonderful work that Lewis Ioane is doing for the Wellington City Libraries. I was lucky to hire Lewis earlier this year and through the now 9 months that I’ve known Lewis not only have I come to know a really amazing, talented, and hard worker, but also someone with a kind and caring heart. It’s been great to share these work experiences with Lewis. I am really proud of the positive impact that he has made since arriving on the scene here in Wellington.

First up: Lewis has been doing some amazing work researching and preparing language guides for many languages, including Rotuman, Samoan, Tongan, Tokelauan, and many more. You can check out these great language guides below. I was so very impressed with this great work that we’re now looking into printing these up as proper posters that each of our library branches can use during various times of the year. They’re also now featured on the digital signage at one of our libraries. I love this because it is a well put together document that is the perfect tool to help community members get a basic introduction to these languages.

SECOND! It was so great to see Lewis contributing to Tuvalu Language Week and the library’s online presence with this great online storytime. As we are still very much in a pandemic, so much of the way that we can connect and communicate with our community members is through social media and other online platforms. The things we do for our community members should not stop during this time…in fact they should continue and grow! Online storytimes and other programs like this are the way for libraries to continue to talk to their communities. Lewis does an amazing job with this storytime and also is spreading the joy that is Tuvalu Language Week. Our libraries are spaces for everyone in our communities, and it is extremely important for us to celebrate moments like this. It shows our communities that we care.

And finally, let’s celebrate the amazing displays that Lewis has been cooking up! These great displays not only brighten up our libraries and fill them up with amazing information that the community can share but it also makes the library space even more welcoming to the community. We’re all in this thing called life together, and when we share experiences and our different cultures we grow. I really love these displays that Lewis is creating because he’s creating opportunities for everyone that visits the library to learn and grow.

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Thank you Lewis for the great work that you do! It sure is great to work with you in our libraries. Keep on sharing your positivity and kindness.