(upbeat music) - PIK2AR began with KAVA Talks and now offers culturally relevant support for Pacific Islanders impacted by domestic and sexual violence.

Our guest today, Oreta Mapu-Tupola, is here with more details.

Hi Oreta, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- PIK2AR is such an important organization here in Utah.

And tell us about your role there.

- Well, I'm the Chief Administrative Officer.

I started there just as a volunteer, became staff, and then now I am helping to run operations for the organization.

- That's wonderful, and it's great that PIK2AR does so much for the Pacific Islander and non-Pacific Islander community here in Utah.

One of the big things they do is this anti-violence and anti-sexual abuse.

Tell us more about the work you do there.

- So it's basically providing culturally tailored programs for Pacific Island community.

What we found though is that it's relevant for a lot of different communities who come from different places.

And so we serve, or half of our community, the population that we serve is non-Pacific Islander, but they find our programs just very comfortable in a more like community setting, not so much like therapy, which has a lot of stigma around it.

And so we've really been able to just tailor our programs that make people feel comfortable about getting support, asking for support, which is not normal in our community.

- Yeah, it's so important to make people feel comfortable when something so vulnerable like that is affecting them.

That's wonderful, and you had this gala coming up.

It's the 10th anniversary gala, tell us more about that.

- Yeah, we're so excited.

10 years is a pretty huge accomplishment I think considering there's not a lot of Pacific Island community-based organizations.

I think the National Tongan American Society is the longest running organization, but we are so proud to be still operating in the past 10 years and looking forward to providing more and more services.

- That's wonderful, well, congratulations on 10 years and all the wonderful work you're doing.

Thank you for being here.

- Thank you.

If you would like to learn more about the PIK2AR Pacific Islander 2 Action Resources, it's their 10th year anniversary gala, September 12th, 6:00 to 8:00 PM at the Aioki Event Garden.

You can learn more at pik2ar.org, that's P-I-K-2-A-R.org.

(upbeat music) I'm Laura Durham, thank you for watching "Contact."

(upbeat music continues) - Local events, arts, culture.

It's what brings us together.

Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

Here on Contact, we introduce you to local events and organizations that serve your neighborhood.

If you work for a nonprofit and would like to appear on our show, please visit pbsutah.org/contact.