Meet your prefect execs: Kaloni Tovo

As Kaloni Tovo overcame personal struggles at home, she learned to make the most of every opportunity presented to her. She hopes that the juniors she takes under her wing will do the same.

Kaloni Tovo knows a thing or two about standing up and standing out. 

At seventeen, Kaloni is confident and self-assured in a way that leaves you slightly bewildered, but confidence alone was not the winning ticket to becoming deputy head girl. Kaloni uses her charisma to empower fellow students, and isn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers in the process. 

Kaloni speaks passionately about her role as a Peer Supporter; senior leaders who help new students settle into Mount Albert Grammar. “My two mottos for my Year 9 classes are to keep your crown high, and the importance of sisterhood…it means to fix another sister’s crown without telling the world it was crooked in the first place.”  Kaloni places special emphasis on self-worth in her discussions with juniors, encouraging them to dream big and trust in themselves. Once, to demonstrate the idea to her class, she used a $20 note as an analogy. “I squished it up. I’m like, what’s it worth? $20. I stepped on it…[still] $20!” Kaloni wants her peers to know that no matter their experiences, they will always have their worth; “what a lot of people mistake is that they came to this earth to find their worth.”

Outside of peer mentoring, Kaloni’s schedule is packed with involvement in the arts, including her responsibilities as an arts prefect and musician in Gloriana Choir and the Ukulele Orchestra. A “hearty Tongan”, she is proud of her heritage and finds ways to support the school’s Pasifika community in every aspect of school life. She tutors for the Māori and Pasifika science classes, is a Commmittee Fafatoa student representative, member of the Pasifika Council, and is performing later this month as part of the Tongan Cultural Group at the annual Unity Concert. 

It’s a busy schedule, and Kaloni often finds herself at school until 7pm running rehearsals and participating in meetings. The key to getting through it all? “Discipline. There’s going to be days where I don’t feel like doing [anything]. But my discipline is going to tell me to do it.” Still, being as busy as Kaloni is not without its challenges, and she admits that there are times when keeping up with her range of activities becomes a struggle.

“Another difficulty I face is, as confident as I am, sometimes people’s opinions get to me…I’m also blunt. That’s something I could work on.”

Kaloni’s self assuredness comes, in part, out of need. At home, she describes herself as a “third parent” who has had to fill a void left by an absent caregiver, a role that was particularly challenging to sustain upon entering high school, and was an obstacle in Kaloni’s participation in school life. “After school, I had to come straight home because my dad was working, so I had to look after my brothers and all that…A lot of sacrifices [are] made in the shadows…[but] I don’t regret it.”

Kaloni’s sacrifices in her junior year have driven her to take up every opportunity afforded to her since. “To be in the top 1% you gotta do what the other 99% are not doing…don’t be afraid to stand alone.” In that sense, Kaloni likens herself to a superhero, and encourages other students to “be your own superhero…[because] at the end of the day,  you carry your own weight.”

At MAGS, Kaloni is proud of the individuality of her peers, and has come to appreciate the diversity that the school enjoys, something that she says her non-MAGS friends are not able to experience. “I didn’t realise how different MAGS is until [my friends] started talking about the clubs [we have]...it has many opportunities.” 

Kaloni is well aware that the past few years have not been the easiest for students across the board and she is interested in reshaping the mentality of some of her peers. “I feel like we’ve drowned in society’s toxicity so much," she says. “People are afraid to dream big, and I’m so big on big dreams…I want to empower them, to say you have so much potential.”

When Kaloni steps foot out of MAGS for the final time later this year, this is the legacy she wants to leave behind.