Vilisi Sokomuri spent four years working in an Australian butchery. Not at the counter, not in the office. On the cutting floor. In a trade most people avoid and almost only men do. She was one of few women there. It was not easy. The work was loud, physical, and the shifts were long. But she stayed.
Sokomuri went through the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme, a program that gives Pacific Island workers access to the Australian job market. What reads like a work visa on paper means something else in daily life: being alone in a foreign country, far from family, in an environment not built for you.
She says the experience changed her. Not in a dramatic way, but in how she makes decisions. How she handles difficulty. It changed my mindset, she says.
After returning to Fiji, she renovated her family home. She funds her son’s education. The money she earned does not sit in an account. It sits in walls, in books, in a future that used to be smaller.
On March 4, 2026, Sokomuri was honoured in Suva alongside other returned women workers. Australian Deputy High Commissioner Clair McNamara said at the event: Women have always been pillars of strength. Through these opportunities, they gain skills, confidence, and the ability to shape their own futures.
It was not a grand state ceremony. It was a room full of women who understand what it means to leave home in order to improve it.