Sth Auckland gym expands reach
Brown Pride as much about helping people out as it is about working out
Brown Pride, a locally owned gym in South Auckland offering in-house counselling and physical therapy will soon employ the services of a GP and counsellor for women with the help of funding secured through Le Va’s $1 million Suicide Prevention Community Fund for 2023.
The gym — “by the people, for the people” — isn’t just a place to lose weight and gain muscle; members say it’s a safe space where friends become family.
It has an on-site barber set up, content and music studio for young people to make their creative dreams a reality, a clothing brand, and it’s the home of record label 216 Records.
Brown Pride is the dream of a group of Manurewa locals, headed by 27-year-old Samoan Johnnie Timu, built on a passion for incubating positive change in the community.
“It’s a social enterprise empowering Pasifika and Māori through fitness, arts and community,” Timu said. “We go out into the community, do volunteer work, and we hold events in the gym like our market day. We send out our barbers to do homeless outreach and our musicians sing at events. It’s a bit of everything.
On Friday nights the gym hosts kava and gaming, providing a safe space for men to talanoa and open up about their life struggles, streamlining them into one-on-one guidance from a mental health professional if needed.
Le Va, a Pasifika-led nongovernment organisation, administers the Pasifika Suicide Prevention Community Fund on behalf of Te Whatu Ora.
Eleven community organisations including Brown Pride will receive support after a rigorous selection process led by Leilani Clarke, Le Va’s senior manager for Pacific suicide prevention.
“The fund supports our Pasifika communities to create innovative, safe and culturally relevant solutions to help prevent and respond to suicide,” Clarke said.
“It’s encouraging to see our groups exploring new approaches, new ideas and new connections with the calibre of applications we see each year.”
Another of Brown Prides funders, The Southern Initiative, an Auckland City Council entity tasked with innovating solutions to tackle some of south and west Auckland’s toughest social and economic challenges, was on the chopping block in Auckland City Council’s budget cut proposal in March.
But after public consultation, Mayor Wayne Brown made a U-turn, having “listened carefully to public feedback and the views of elected members”.
Timu has a “southside” mentality, admitting that without the funding, he and his team would find a way to carry their enterprise with the help of the community and financial reinvestment.
“When you’re raised in South Auckland you always find a way. But the funding helps us with our reach. Le Va has made it easier for us.”
They’ve come a long way since 2017, when Brown Pride started as a group of mates working dead-end jobs. Timu brought the team together to brainstorm how to turn their passions into a career.
“We were lucky that the community supported us in the beginning when we were running bootcamps.”
Le Va also delivers two national suicide prevention programmes – FLO: Pasifika for Life aimed at Pacific people, and LifeKeepers.
With a mission of igniting communities and creating change, Le Va takes an evidence-based approach to its work spanning suicide prevention, mental health and addiction, disability, public health, violence prevention, and youth wellbeing.