Meet Aalam Janif | Co Founder Actisquad Fitness Group & President of Fiji USA Non Profit Foundation

We had the good fortune of connecting with Aalam Janif and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Aalam, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I am originally from Fiji Islands. I was born and raised there. I went to school there and in 2007 we migrated to USA. Landed in Los Angeles and instantly fell in love with this city. I was in 11 grade and I attended Carson High School. I went to a community college and after 2 years I decided to start working full time to help support the family.

My upbringing in the Islands was normal, father was a business man selling goods from our farm and my mother was a first grade teacher. We weren’t rich but we weren’t poor either, I would say we were middle class family. Life in Fiji is hard, prices of goods and services are pretty expensive and most of the people fall into the poor class due to not enough jobs and economy situation.

My father was a very strict person, we basically had a military daily routine from the time my brothers and I are supposed to wake up, what time we should have dinner and what time we should be in bed with all the other chores and school work in between. We were well taught on how to handle money and other life skills that is helping use today and continue to help in future.

After living in Los Angeles, I came to realize that there are far more opportunities here yet there are far more people falling into poverty and ending up being homeless. A lot of mental health issues that affects individuals who are not able to understand or decide what they want to do with their life. All these factors are helping me understand the what can happen and how situations can change in an instant. Taking life for granted is not worth it. It is very important to cherish life and not just yours, value other peoples lives that are around you, I feel for the homeless people, I always wonder how do they sleep at night in the cold with no roof and on the cement. My heart breaks when we go feed the homeless and little children comes up to get food.

I am grateful for my parents that has guided us as individuals to become the person we are today. I am grateful to meet my wife who is always supporting me. I am grateful to meet a good amount of people since last year who are helping out with our charity events every month.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I currently work in Credit Card Payment Processing Services. I work for a company called FD Merchant services. We set up business accounts who need to take credit card payments. We help with installation and monitor accounts for any unusual activities. I also do a little bit of sales here to get businesses to use our service due to us offering wholesale processing rates. I am looking to build my portfolio with this company and learn new things as they come.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I reside in Hawthorne so the tour would begin going south on PCH then towards Palos Verdes. Drive down to Trump National Golf Course – check out the scenery and views from there.
Drive over the Vincent bridge to Long Beach and give them a tour of the Long Beach Pike, show them the Queen Mary.
Drive down to Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach until Laguna Beach.
Take them to Marina Del Rey, Santa Monica Pier, DTLA, Beverly Hills and Hollywood.

Places to eat would be Boiling Crab, The Warehouse in Marina Del Rey. Castaway in Burbank. Sushi Sumo in Gardena. Worlds Famous Grill in Bell. And the 2 other days I would BBQ at home – Lamb Chops with chicken wings and steak.

I would like my friend to see LACMA (lights), Getty Museum, Hollywood Sign, Downtown Disney, Universal City Walk, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Santa Monica Pier.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are 2 parts to our organization. 1. Fiji USA Non Profit Foundation. 2. Actisquad Fitness Group.

Fiji USA Non Profit Foundation was founded in 2011. The sole purpose was to help the rural areas and poor community of Fiji Islands. As Fiji Islands got hit with Cyclones, Fiji USA Non Profit Foundation collected donations, clothes, supplies, etc to help the people in need. Fast Forwarding to 2015-2016, most of the members started to move out of our community and most relocated out of states. This brought a bit of a decline in the activity within the Non Profit. No donations were collected, whatever balance was left was occasionally donated to different charities. Fast Forward to 2022. After the whole dilemma with COVID-19 my wife and my friends started going on hikes. Every Sunday we went to a new trail to explore. We decided to make an Instagram page and call our group Actisquad. After couple months of Hiking, I brought it up to the group that what I really wanted to do was feeding the homeless community. I asked if anyone was interested and mostly everyone was on board with the idea. May 2022, we had our first feed the homeless event in Mc Arthur Park. All the preparation was done through our group, with our own expense, friends who couldn’t make it to the event donated money to buy food or supplies. We did this from May 2022 until September 2022 holding these events either in Mc Arthur Park or in SkidRow DTLA. My uncle who is the Vice President of Fiji USA Non Profit Foundation at that time asked how we were funding these events, I told him these events were solely funded by the groups members personal expenses. I asked him if I could get the Fiji USA Non Profit involved in this cause to help with funding and collecting donations. He agreed and since September 2022 until present we are known as Actisquad Fitness Group by Fiji USA Non Profit Foundation.

We as Actisquad like to join other local organizations events such as clean up events that is mostly hosted by OnTrailsWith and other events so that we socialize with others and tell them what we do. It helps us find volunteers for our events.

I got a lot of support from various groups and individuals that has helped our organization grow and enable us to host our feed the homeless events at least once a month. My wife Shirti has been a huge support since day one, our Actisquad day one crew. Various groups and their members such as GoodKarmaLA – OntrailWith – The Hiking Dead – Devil Dog Hikers – Hike Revolution – Vision Quest.

Website: linktr.ee/actsquad

Instagram: @actisquad

Linkedin: Aalam Janif

Youtube: Actisquad