Te Ara Museum of Cultural Enterprises supports locally-made products and artisans in the Cook Islands. Through their enterprise development program, they work with entrepreneurs in developing quality products that they then feature in a physical store within their museum, providing them with access to the tourism market.

With the suspension of tourism to the Pacific Islands due to the pandemic, Te Ara, previously 90% reliant on the tourist market, found themselves needing to innovate and find other ways to support themselves and their enterprises. Taking into account the very small size of the domestic market, Te Ara recognised early on that there were limited options for them to pivot and generate additional revenue locally. It became important for them to invest time and resources in laying down the foundations for a longer term solution that would protect them and their enterprises from future economic shocks resulting from a decline in tourism.

As part of the SFI Response Program, Te Ara received the advisory support and funding needed to test and start developing a longer term sustainable and scalable alternative platform to conduct their Pasifika value based community business. The latter consist of an e-commerce platform, which provides their enterprises with access to a global market. It was important for the platform to maintain strong values in serving the Cook Islands people with the asset of shared traditional and contemporary Pasifika knowledge.

• Funding for business development
• Partnerships with media, educational institutions, NGOs etc. Connections with anyone passionate about protecting the Pacific Ocean region and anyone wanting to implement, collaborate and support action and change.