Lydia | Māngere, Auckland

“I’ve had a lot of those experiences right here at this whenua, and across the road at the David Lange Park.

The event I’m thinking of is celebrating people; young people, our elderly, just coming together and celebrating at a specific time in the calendar. One, towards the end of the year; two, at the beginning of the year, pre-Covid19. 

I’m thinking of a specific event where I’ve met some new migrants from Africa, who lived for a temporary period at the Māngere refugee settlement centre. They’re there for a three-month period before they become new New Zealanders, and it was interesting to listen to their story. New Zealand is quite different. We have indigenous Māori; new culture, new land, new way of life. But listening to their story, they’ve come from a war-torn country. Someone like myself, I don’t understand that. I don’t understand what that is about, but their appreciation of New Zealand is to be their new home, and freedom and peace, something that we take for granted, we New Zealanders take for granted, a lot. 

What I learned, is that being a New Zealander way down in the globe, I used to think was a pain in the butt, but in actual post-Covid, probably pretty happy, but that experience, it took me a little while to understand what this lady from Africa, and this man, who were actually dressed in their own costume, in their own ethnic dress, just gave me the appreciation that even though we’re different, we’re actually quite similar in what we strive for. A home, peace, freedom, and just getting on with people in your community that want the same things that you, you want, irrespective of your background, economic status. And I think one of the things that this lady shared with her children, around being people, community wellbeing, and family, and so this community that I come from around here, there’s a lot of focus on family and whānau.

I grew up in South Auckland in my early years. Lived in Central Auckland and still very much travel between both. My values are around people, community wellbeing. So I work in the public sector, and what’s important to me is that people are people in terms of community wellbeing, in terms of my family wellbeing. Those are my values, whatever your background or your economic status, and the example that I’d probably use is one of our elderly, with respect, Palagi woman, she was doing her shopping last night, just over there at Pak’n’Save. She was really struggling with a whole trolley of groceries, and we were standing there getting our groceries, and she really needed some support. Yeah, and so in this community, those are my values. Quite simple. Look after yourself, look after one another, when you can. You may not do that all the time. Pretty simple, my family values.”