Leanne | Northcote
“My grandmother influenced my life.
She was brought up down on the East Coast by Gisborne, and so we would go for holidays every year on the marae with her, and she taught me to sew and make bread and look out for other people. Whenever anybody would come over to her house, she would always make sure that there was a cup of tea and something to eat, and I do that as well. It was just always about looking after other people and making sure that everybody else was okay, and she instilled that in me and that’s how I live and I guess that’s why I’ve got the job that I’ve got teaching children in this community. Another story about her is she had 12 children and she used to travel for two hours on the back of a horse to the hospital to have them while she was in labour. So whenever I feel like something’s too hard I think of that story and think, God if she can do that, then it’s not so hard.
I grew up in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, and we spent a lot of time at the Mount, at the beach digging for pipi’s, fishing. We grew up around the sea quite a lot. We used to all play a musical instrument and have nights where we’d all play music together or sing or play the guitar. We spent a lot of time with extended family with cousins. It was a lot about family time really, when I was growing up.
I think it’s definitely important and I think it’s really, I’m a mother of a nine year old daughter and I want her to see me I guess achieving whatever it is I want to achieve, and let her know that nothing is just for boys or just for girls, that she can do whatever she wants to do. I’ll support her with that, and if she sees me doing that or sees other women in the community doing it, then I guess it normalises it for her.”
