Pacific Kids Learning Launch Samoan Digital Stories Collection

Apia, Samoa – 04 August 2025 – Pacific Kids’ Learning (PKL) has launched the Samoana Animations – a collection of digital stories, honouring the sacred relationship between mothers and daughters as the bearers and protectors of cultural knowledge, language, and identity.

The collection was launched at the MADD Gallery, Moto’otua, last Saturday, 02 August.

Based in Samoa and supported by The Commonwealth of Learning, the Samoana Animations initiative is not just a digital storytelling project – it is a cultural reclamation. The series centres around the theme: “Every story begins with a mother’s love” recognising that within the warmth of a mother’s embrace lies the first story, the first song, the first word. This is also a very fitting piece of PKL’s story, as the social enterprise from Aotearoa New Zealand is also led by 3 mothers.

PKL was honoured to partner with the esteemed Papali’itele Momoe Malietoa von Reiche – renowned author, artist, and inspiring mother from the villages of Sapapali’i and Fa’ato’ialemanū and her talented daughter, Afamasaga Seiuli Salamāsina von Reiche, a dynamic podcaster, radio host, and wellness advocate with connections to Fasito’otai, Malie, and Lufilufi.

The authors with some of the guests at last Saturdays launch of the Samoan animated digital stories for children.

Adding even more heart to this journey, PKL were thrilled to collaborate with Taimaaiono Agnes Saili-Kerslake, a serial entrepreneur, tech advocate, and blessed mother to artist Maria-Kolotita Siufaga Kerslake. Maria transformed her mother’s story into digital illustrations, adding a stunning visual dimension to a shared legacy.

“Our stories were never just for entertainment – they are blueprints of identity, vessels of knowledge, and maps to belonging for our children,” says Samoan mother Theresa Tupuola-Sorenson, Co-founder and Education Director at PKL.

“Samoana Animations is our offering to the next generation, to see their heritage honoured on-screens, to hear their languages spoken with pride, and to know that their culture belongs in every space, including the digital one.”

In June, PKL was humbled to be invited into the sacred space of the Leulumoega School of Fine Arts, a revered institution safeguarding Samoan creative traditions for nearly four decades. Together with emerging traditional artists, PKL facilitated a free digital art workshop where ancestral knowledge and new technology met with care, humility, and shared purpose. As Reverend Pelenato Liufau and Faletua Susana P Liufau reminded them, “E sui faiga, ae tūmau fa’avae” – methods may change, but the foundations remain the same.

The Samoana Animations collaboration was a mutual exchange, a shared journey for PKL with Samoa’s cultural custodians and storytellers, to amplify Samoan stories through creative media. It is a weaving of ancient rhythms and digital dreams that will capture the hearts of a younger digital audience for years to come.

All the stories from the Samoana Animations are now available to enjoy in both Gagana Samoa and in English on the Pacific Digital Library pacificdigitallibrary.com. from Saturday 02 August, free to view across Samoa.