Fala Fretton, a 63-year-old father from the village of Nu’u Fou is adamant there is always hope when we believe.

He caught up with the Village Voice team yesterday when he was making his way home to prepare some food for his family.

Fala is a father of two. He is the sole breadwinner for the family.

He admits that times are hard but he said we need to be positive.

“I am the one providing for my family,” he said. “As a father I am very proud of who my children are and what they’ve accomplished.”

 “Even though they haven’t completed their education yet I’m believing for big things from them in the future.”

 Life will always be full of challenges, he said.

“As a father, I just pray that my children will continue to be blessed.”

Fala is a taxi driver.

“I collect $70 to $80tala a day, and it’s for my family, so we always try to budget wisely,” he said. 

“We all know that life isn’t easy anymore in terms of money but we always try our best to budget smart.”

“No matter how tough life gets, my family’s priority will always be our children.”

“I know that setting good examples for my children about how to develop their family when they grow older is something that I’m looking at now to teach them.”

Fala said the struggles with money is not confined to anybody in particular.

 “Life is really hard but we keep trying,” he said.

 “As I’ve mentioned before, we have children to put through school; it’s not easy at all it seems that we have way more children schooling than those working.”

 “We also have bills to pay and obligations to take care of and sometimes we’re very worried...where we’re going to get the money from to pay and cover everything.”

But Fala said that there’s hope.

“No matter how hard life with money, to be honest, there’s hope.”

“Personally, despite all the failures, challenges and problems in life especially the high cost of living that we’re now facing - God is still in control.”

“So we keep on praying...and I thank God for His faithfulness, he never let us down.”

“What is very important is that we work together many times and I believe this is the key to a successful family.”