Joanne | Māngere
“My name is Joanne. I live in Māngere. That’s where I call home. I’m in the area here in GI, dropping off a friend. I like this area for its op-shopping. It’s great.
Most of my friends are quite elderly. I work with the elderly, ironically but I find them the closest to my heart. I love hanging out at the local Marae here. I find all my inspirations in the elderly. They teach me a lot about how to present myself, how to be, and they give me a lot of freedom. My friendships range from cooking, eating, singing and love, they love their waiata Māori. So, I’m there to help with that. I don’t know if I let people do things for me, as such. I mean, the garden’s pretty high. I’ve got to get me some more friends to recruit there. But I’m very wrapped up in helping other people myself, rather than the opposite. I think I’m just in a comfortable position where I just open up my house. I have a couple of extra people that stay with me at the moment. It’s more to do with them just having their freedom I think, with a roof over your head. That does a lot for these people. That’s important to me, trying to find solutions to the housing problem. That weighs heavy on New Zealand. So, my house and family are open to housing a couple of people at a time.
I’ve brought my own nine children up in te reo Māori and we were encouraged by our Marae whānau, to stay close to home until they were old enough. Now we’re just bursting through New Zealand, all working in the field, and mostly doing social work. Caring for people is huge for us. Society is a little bit cruel, but we bring back the kindness. If we can just help each other, that’s the main goal for us, just to care and love each other especially in the family, and then it just goes out from there to other people.
We enjoy our family so much. The warmth of being around food and kōrero, or conversations of different avenues; we learn from that. I think it’s all to do with the foundation of the family. Got an awesome mum, awesome dad, and my nine children, well I think they’re fantastic, too. They’re good little citizens, and they’re bringing through the next generation. So, I’m not that far from being a great-grandma. We love it. We just embrace each other.”
