Lilo | Ōtara
“I guess one of my regrets, one of the bigger regrets that I have is when I was a lot younger I didn’t quite zero in on what it was that I wanted to do.
So, I figured it out a little bit later, but it’s a regret in the way that I didn’t really care to find out what it was. What it is that I’ve found out now that I’m older is to uplift my own community, rather than, you know, just kind of fluff around and do what I wanted to do. So, I wish I had put my head down a little bit earlier so that I can give back more. I can only start giving back now or like, last year, or two years ago when I figured it out. I feel like I could have done a lot more for a lot longer. So, I think my regret is not figuring it, not figuring it out earlier.
I think over the years of growing up and being able to see parts of the world that I never would have got to see, doing a lot more creative stuff is, I find that I’ve done a full circle. What’s important to me now is my community, the people in my community, and the community has changed from since I was a kid, to now. It’s made up of more groups than I knew growing up, and I see a giant need, a massive need for younger kids to have some bit of consistency in their – in the home life. I don’t have all the answers, but I know that it’s important to me, to help shape, or help assist the younger kids, earlier, prevention rather than reaction. I think that’s important to me, that we help make, help the kids make better choices younger than try and figure out a plan to react to what’s already gone wrong. If it could happen, I’m down for it.
I mean, my line of work and everything, I’ve shaped it since I figured out what I wanted to actually do. I found a job that does exactly what I hope to achieve, well, at least for now. The bigger goal is to maybe have one of my own. Maybe give out scholarships at schools if I could.
I work for a place called the Graeme Dingle Foundation. They have different programs, but the one that I’m a part of is called Kiwi Can, and it’s a program that we put in low decile schools, and it’s a value-based program. I think I was surprised to find that in low decile schools, that some of these values-based programs with some values that we think everyone should know, they don’t know, or they can’t even define it. They’re not quite sure. So, I didn’t know if there was a great need for it, until I had my first day on the job, and it really sunk in that these core values that we should have as just human beings, are not properly defined, or not properly instilled in our kids. They kind of know, but not really. So, that’s the work that we do. We go into schools and we try and basically, we try and improve their life any way that we can, whether we assist them through a creative way, sports, academia; anyway that we can. Even stuff that is outside the job that’s not in the scope of our job, I still put my hand up and assist. It’s a program that really cares about what happens to the children, and it really cares about what happens to them from a young age, not after the fact. So, I’m really, I’m pro-prevention. I would like to not have to draw a U-turn for them if I could just draw roads for them in the beginning.
I was born here in New Zealand and I was born and raised in Ōtara. I literally stay around the corner over there.”
