Barbara | Māngere
“Hi, my name is Barbara and my home is in Māngere. A sense of accomplishment? I guess where I work, I’ve been in the community for the last 10 years, working.
I’ve seen a lot of changes, seeing it heading in the right direction, and being part of Council with a game-plan equipped me to help people within my community to make better choices, in regards to their total wellbeing; physically, mentally, emotionally. So, my role in the community is to get people active their way, and I do that by promoting or advertising certain events that are taking place in our facility and using our facility as a hub to generate more foot traffic, and ensuring that people are happy with the service, and they continue to come back and use our facilities.
I do like it when people come back, and they keep coming back on a daily, weekly, yearly basis. I’ve been here for the last 10 years, and I’ve known a lot of people over the 10 years who have come and gone. I guess that’s a sense of accomplishment for me, people investing in their health.
I’m a New Zealand Cook Island-born. Born and raised here. Both of my parents are originally from the Cook Islands, from Aitutaki. Educating was a big thing within our community, as well as religion. So my parents were all about education. I studied in Māngere, I went to primary in Māngere, High School in Māngere, but I got my degree in Unitec out West. One of the reasons why I moved away to get my degree, was that it was so easy to be surrounded by your own people, and MIT was down the road, which was South-side, but what I wanted to do was surround myself with other people who were going to bring out the best in me. So I removed myself out of my comfort zone, and I went more to a more European place to educate myself and to be better. It was a bit hard but at the same time, I had to learn and upskill myself, and in doing that, I actually came back and invested in my community.
So, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to move out of South but I guess the most important thing to me is family, and family is everyday people in my community. So what I’d like to share with people is the benefits of fitness or exercising and being mindful of what we eat. It can physically, mentally and emotionally take you a long way in regards to living longer and living a fit and able life. I guess one of the most common things in our community is health issues, and people are getting them way too young. If we could prevent it, which is just educating our people in our community about the food that we eat and the lack of movement that we do, that it does contribute as we get older, and it exposes us to a lot of health issues. So I’m trying to get the word out there with our kids that we bring into our facilities because what we teach our kids they can take into adulthood.
So in 10 years’ time, I would like to see people normalising exercising. There are a lot more accessible, free programs out there, that people can utilise because I know, exercising sometimes comes at a cost. So, there’s more availability with outdoor exercising to help get those active. In 10 years’ time, I guess there’ll be a lot more active, drug-free types of communities. I know that’s going to go a long way. I guess, people getting active their way, and enjoying it, and knowing the benefits. If people know the benefits of it, that’s more of a reason for them to want to be active. So it’s people upskilling themselves in regards to the benefits of exercising and being mindful of what you eat. Then, in the long run, results-wise, physically you’re still here, you’re still able, and you’re still heading in the right direction of being active, being mindful of what you eat, and creating memorable experiences with people that you do meet along the way.”
