Our family broke down when I was about 1 year old, my family was deported from Australia back to Fiji.
Musician, lawyer, and survivor, Natalie Raikadroka highlighted this on fijivillage Straight Talk With Vijay Narayan as she spoke about her very violent upbringing while growing up around her father and mother, and she said she cannot speak about the real violent episodes in the house on the show.
Raikadroka says her father’s family was the first safety net for her and her brother as her father was always in and out of prison.
Raikadroka says the hardest thing was the feeling of abandonment, being left and unwanted, and she had a lot of anger pic.twitter.com/v1mV3Llhqh
— fijivillage (@fijivillage) August 22, 2025
She says one of the most hardest things to survive while growing up without their biological parents.
Raikadroka says it was the feeling of abandonment, being left and unwanted, and she had a lot of anger.
The show went beyond the music and the stage lights.
From being deported as a toddler, living under a house and studying by candlelight, to facing abuse, judgement, and stigma – Raikadroka has walked through struggles that many in Fiji can relate to but she has also risen, with education, music, and sheer resilience, to carve out her own path.
Stay tuned for the latest news on our radio stations
