Wilson – Mt. Maunganui
“The last message I sent to someone was, ‘see you soon’, because we’re going to Christchurch tomorrow for the surf lifesaving nationals, and my friend’s travelling from the Mount.
I’m studying Communications at AUT, second year. Auckland is definitely a safe city, but a few things are off-putting. I guess you just have to get used to them. Like, coming from the Mount I’m not really used to seeing hundreds of people on the streets or anyone asking you for money. So, that was a bit of a wake-up call.
There’s a lot of factors that contribute to people ending up on the streets, I guess. One thing I noticed sitting on the bus is just everyone tunes out, and it’s important to have time to yourself, but there’s times where we’re all looking at our phones or listening to music when you could be connecting with other people.
Auckland definitely has its ups and downs, but it’s a cool place to learn and grow as a person and then maybe take that back home, which is what I plan to do.
I do surf lifesaving because it’s a way to give back to the community and to look after other people in the community. To give back to people is something really special, and to do it in the ocean is a lot of fun. You don’t have to be a top ironman or anything. You can just give up a little bit of your time to help other people out.”
