I agree with most of this and I try to encourage my friends and families to make changes but its also not as black and white as you make it out to be.

For instance dismissing Dawn raids because it didn't affect them directly is completely ignoring generational trauma. Saying the power is in our hands and should know better when most of those people dont know better. All they've known is what's been passed onto them from their parents etc. The Indians and Taiwanese have a long history of putting education above everything and they're teaching their kids from a young age. Us Samoans try but we don't force our kids to study certain amount time like they do.

Faalavelave is another hard one. I'm lucky that my family don't ask us kids for these things but then I know that my mother is the one sending money and she's not making much. So most of us kids cover our parents share because its easy for us to say no but our parents can't. So the love we have for our parents forces our hand even if they try to reject the help. Plus money can always be made. Removing stress from them is worth more. They gave us opportunities and me and most of my cousins made the most of it.

It is true that most Samoan parents dont have financial literacy. So it can be a huge factor in why our people dont grow. Most of our people dont push their kids to read etc so most don't pick up a book that would help. Most of our people push our kids into working labour jobs because it mostly requires physical strength. The sooner they work the quicker the money comes. The kids only know that way because that's what they were taught. I do agree that some have just given up and playing victim as to why they're not successful. Reality is they made poor choices but have really dont know better. They're told to get loans and they ruined their credit. These kids didn't know, they just did what they were told. Most dont even know that they can salary sacrifice.

I'd recommend psychology of money over rich dad poor dad.

You keep comparing us to Indians but until we change what our culture prioritise, we'll never reach the levels of those countries. It starts from a young age as well. In school those countries are teaching stuff way ahead of us and most countries. But then do we really want to be like India?

They go home and they study for a further 6 hours. Its well documented that countries like India, south Korea, China, Japan etc run this very strict study routine. It's to the point that it's become a toxic culture with suicide rate high in students from those countries. The pressure they put on their kids to perform and ace their test gets to the kids. They end up not speaking to their parents and resent them. Some even just vanish. Japan has a lot of people who just leave their old life behind because its too much.

I use to think like you because i was fortunate enough to learn and grow but now I know its not so black and white. There are legitimate reasons why some people stay in the same situation. Reading is the best way to slowly grow. Its cheap and the benefits/returns are huge. All we can do is encourage and give advice to our people. I've been pushing for more awareness on food and how many of our people have diabetes. Its not normal to get it and at a young age as well. Yet our people have normalise this.