WELKOM
ALGETA.
Welcome
Everyone.
Wellness is a sistahood tribe, its a village.
About us.
About Avaivilla Group.
Avaivilla Group is a First Nations, female owned business operating in Narrm (Melbourne) Victoria. Founded in 2016 by Torres Strait / Pasifika First Nations woman, Terori Hareko-Avaivila.
Avaivilla Group started out as Salt Studio Consultancy, offering cultural Education, community leadership and cultural supervision as its core products. As wellness as operating its online gift store, Vai Nations. In 2022, it pivoted into a company, becoming Avaivilla Group P/L. In 2024, Avaivilla Group started its shift from providing mainstream cultural education to focus more on community projects, building sistahood solidarity networks and destination wellness retreats.
Avaivilla group is also working in collaboration with the First Nations Women’s Collective to support the voices of First Nations women in sharing wisdom, culture and collective action that bring change for women and girls.
About our services.
At Avaivilla Group, we curate immersive cultural experiences and wellness retreats in Victoria and in the breathtaking Island nation of Vanuatu. Blending restorative practices, mindful cultural connections, ceremony, and nourishing cuisine to reset and restore. We collaborate with First Nations wellness wisdom holders, local guides, and holistic wellness facilitators in designing our wellness offerings and journey to help you disconnect from your busy life, unlearn what you have being told, deepen self-care and move gently with self-kindness. Explore, be still and learn to connect to ancestor wisdom that is alive around you.
Take part in:
Sistahood yarning circles - yarn up with mind liked sista ones who are on the same journey as you in their own space. Share, laugh, connect and be embraced in a sistahood village.
Mindful Stillness - a meditation process of relearning and acknowledging your space and journey with self, through breath work and stillness.
Creative Reflections - participate in creative workshops while yarning. Try something new that will add to your daily wellness. Learn about self-gifting and the freedom that comes with loving your space.
Ceremony - Share in our koko ceremony to acknowledge the divine feminine and connecting to ancestor energy. Cleanse energy with a smoking to renew your journey.
What We Offer.
Holding Space Day Retreats
Our day retreats are a fun way for women to come together for some wellness activities that focus on destressing from our everyday life. It is a wonderful community of women who come together to participate in mindful practices, grounding and sistahood yarning circles.
FLOAT Retreats in Vanuatu
A destination wellness retreat for women 35+ in their changing seasons (peri-menopause, menopause, post menopause, life shifts, family changes and work challenges). This space is about building wellness through nurturing our sistahood tribes and celebrating the unlearning and reconnecting to self-kindness.
Community Building & Sistahood Network
We work in collaboration with our sista organisations to connect global First Nations communities & women through forums, workshops and skills sharing. Our aim is to educate as well as offer key support, expert advice, project management and skills sharing with female led projects and businesses across Asia Pacific.
Our Team
Terori is a passionate First Nations/Pasifika cultural educator, artist, story teller and wellness facilitator and activist. Drawing from her tri-cultural heritage of Torres Straits, Papua New Guinea and Samoa; Terori brings First Nations and Pasifika identity into spaces of knowledge building and cultural healing. Offering a unique world view to First Nations cultural practices and knowledge streams.
Terori is the founder and Managing Director of Avaivilla Group, a First Nations owned, female operated business based in Narrm (Melbourne). Avaivilla Group started with offering cultural education, community leadership and cultural supervision as its core product with the ‘Working in Two Worlds’ training and forums. In 2024, the business transitioned fully into the cultural wellness space, offering women 35+ and over a unique destination retreat in Vanuatu.
In her other roles, Terori is the current chair of First Nations Women’s Collective, an international network of First Nations wisdom holders for the preservation of cultural knowledge, practices and communities.
She is also the current General Manager of Koondee Woonga-gat Toor-rong, a First Nations philanthropic organisation based in Narrm, providing small community grants to First Nations led projects across Victoria.
Terori is passionate about the health and wellbeing of all women, offering FLOAT in Vanuatu is her unique destination wellness retreat infusing cultural knowing with mindful practices to ground and build authentic sistahood communities for like minded women.
Meet Veronika
Veronika has a background in human rights advocacy and community engagement. Originally from the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in Siberia, Veronika jas worked with activists from her home region to build community networks that are culturally safe and help to amplify the voices of First Nations peoples from Siberia and broader communities internationally.
She is the Event Manager at Avaivilla Group, supporting with the planning, connecting and management of the FLOAT Women’s Wellness Retreat in Vanuatu and the Knowledge Streams Forum in Melbourne.
She is passionate about creating opportunities for community connection, cultural strengthening and grassroots actions.
In other hers other roles, Veronika works with Koondee Woonga-gat Toor-rong Community Fund or KWT, as business support. She works alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members to decolonise the philanthropic space to ensure First Nations people have access to community grants to support community led projects and aspirations.
Veronika is also the Manager of Fundraising & Partnerships at First Nations Women’s Collective. FNWC is an international collaborative network that was set up in Narrm (Melbourne) to enable First Nations women from different countries to gather and share cultural wisdom, practices and stories about their communities.
Meet Terori
Start Your Wellness Journey with us.
One of the beautiful thing about organising the FLOAT Retreat is the women you meet and the stories of each tidda’s journey. Some will give you a good belly laugh, some will offer insight into your own journey and some will fill your eyes with tears of compassion and understanding.
It is these interactions that push me to create nurturing, cultural spaces for tidda (sister) ones 35+ to gather, practice unlearning of individual wellness and nurture collective wellness. A foundation of First Nations wellness practice is the wellness of the village, not the individual. At FLOAT retreats you become part of a sistahood village. Starting your days with gentle reminders for self-care and reflections, cleanse with ceremony and cultural connecting; and learning to release with water healing and mindful practices.
Join us at our next retreat, you mind, body and spirit will thank you for it tidda.
Video: FLOAT24 - PINK night sistahood dinner and drinks, with sistahood photoshoot.