What’s a challenge you overcame?

Joelle | Ōpōtiki

When Joelle left Rotorua, she felt like she was leaving all her connections to whānau behind. But in Ōpōtiki, she found new connections and a new community that changed her path.

“I had never left Rotorua. My family are all there. So the challenge was to actually leave. Leave my whakapapa, leave my roots.

Coming to a new place, I knew nobody. I didn’t even have any whānau here. I had actually never been to Ōpōtiki. The furthest I had been to was Ōhope.

I said to my husband, when we were coming to Ōpōtiki for my first time, “if there’s people on horses, I’m not interested”. And the first thing we saw coming around the beach on the corner, we saw horses. We came into town, and we saw horses. And then I said to my husband, “kāo, I’m not moving here, I want nothing to do with this place.” And now when people ask me, “where’s home for you?” – Ōpōtiki is my home.

There’s so many things that I didn’t realise—that I needed Ōpōtiki more than I thought that it needed me. Just the whole environment. But it took so long for me to realise that. I think I was just so complacent with the fact that my family were holding me up, but actually, they weren’t really. This place is me. This place is Māori. This place is home. This place is whakapapa. And we are so solid in that. This is home. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

This place actually saved my life, to be honest. It’s opened up so many options. I never thought that I’d speak te reo, know my own whakapapa, meet people that are the same as me, that just enjoy life and appreciate the small things in life.”