Jaymee - This is Aotearoa

Jaymee | Manurewa, Auckland

“Home for me is going back to my hometown where I’m from, which is Gisborne. I’m originally from Tūparoa down on the East Coast, and home means just spending time with family there, and being able to connect with my roots and doing some of the things that our ancestors did, which is like fishing and going and getting kaimoana and stuff like that.

Just that feeling of the environment that makes you feel comfortable, where you are and where you’re loved.

I was born in Middlemore but my dad’s Māori side is from the East Coast and my mum’s side is from up North, Ngāpuhi and we’ve just always been raised in Auckland. We started out in Manurewa, and then we moved to Pukekohe in 2005, when I was five, and I pretty much grew up there in Pukekohe from when I was five to about 15, and then I moved to my nan’s in Manukau, Auckland and ended up finishing high school at Manurewa High, and I ended up getting a lot more opportunities that I was interested in because I’m into performing arts. Dancing. I love to sing and perform and acting. I was given a lot more dancing opportunities. I ended up joining school dance crews, and we ended up taking out a lot of street dance competitions, and it was really fun and a challenging experience, but it taught me a lot. From there I ended up living in ‘Rewa, and then ended up getting signed to a talent agency, and then from there I ended up doing my first serious job with a New Zealand documentary by Radio New Zealand. They did a documentary on the New Zealand Wars, called Waitara Wars, and I was one of the Māori females who fought in the war, and it was just basically telling the people about how the women would fight just as much as the men would, back in those times when their land and stuff were getting taken off of them. That was a really cool experience for my first job on camera, and then from there I ended up getting jobs with Shortland Street being a background nurse. That was really cool since I had always watched them growing up, and then to be on it myself was really cool. To see the stars and work with them, myself was really cool. Then just been doing more jobs and retail jobs and other hospitality, catering jobs, but I really am trying to become a professional actress later on in my career.

Aroha nui. That means it’s okay, or you’ll be alright. I think it means that. Just saying you’ll be alright, to spread love, that’s cool.”

What, if anything, have you done differently after visiting this site?

Matty

Matty

Matty | Richmond, Nelson - "Rocko hadn’t had one birthday in the same place, every birthday was in a different country. So, I recognised a pattern, and how it made me feel, and Nelson is a nice place. It’s very important that they have a base and some roots and have a place that they can always call home."
Nick

Nick

Nick | Ōtara, Auckland - "Home for me, is about feeling loved with family and letting the next generation know that family is important to our lives, and to our struggles or whatever we’re going through in life."
Rachel

Rachel

Rachel | The Wood, Nelson - "2010 was when we lost three family members in the Haiti earthquake, and I left New Zealand to support my sister, and when I came home to Nelson, it was just really amazing the community support that was there for all of us in so many ways, to get us through that time."
Harold

Harold

Harold | Māngere, Auckland - "My digital home is a place that we have a sense of belonging to, where we can talk to friends, communicate with people all over the world, and you don’t feel as alone maybe, as you do if you were just in your house and you didn’t have any form of way of communicating with the rest of the world."
Michaela

Michaela

Michaela | New Plymouth, Taranaki - "I think you can be in lots of different places and make them your home if you’re willing to connect to a community and be part of a community then that can be your home."
Aaron

Aaron

Aaron | Māngere, Auckland - "The plan is to settle down and change my life. That’s my hope. I’m trying to look for another job, but just been doing a few courses with MIT."
Ana Maria

Ana Maria

Ana Maria | Epsom, Auckland - "Donde me siento segura, donde me siento amada, libre de expresión, donde puedo inviter amigos, y disfrutar de little, mi pequeño palacio. Where I feel safe, where I feel loved, free to express, where I can invite friends, and enjoy my little palace."
Levi

Levi

Levi | Māngere, Auckland - "I’m homeless. I’m struggling in life because of that, but I’m thinking in the future, I still put my head up high. No matter what happens I lift my head up and walk tall and think of the future."
Fletcher

Fletcher

Fletcher | Otūmoetai, Bay of Plenty - "Because if you don’t have family, you have nothing. To me, family is everything. Having brothers and my mum, my stepdad. So, yeah that’s the main important thing to me, family first."
Padma

Padma

Padma | Ruby Bay, Nelson - "After having designed many houses and homes for people, it’s not about the bricks and mortar. It’s not even about a place which is a receptacle of your belongings. Is it about identity? Perhaps. To me it’s more about that connection."

Jaymee | Manurewa, Auckland

What, if anything, have you done differently after visiting this site?

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