B | Mt Roskill
“I think, a lot of its brought together people that wouldn’t actually come together, you know, before.
Sometimes something like this actually changes, is a lot of good in the local community. So before we, you wouldn’t actually talk to one another. Now, you probably would, based on situations that have happened. So, the togetherness shows that you know, when things happen, New Zealanders stand up, and yeah try to make everyone understand the things that we call home, for everyone to call home as well.
I think standing strong, and keeping going on what you believe in, because ourselves here in New Zealand, especially as Māori indigenous people, we’ve lacked a lot of that, and believing in ourselves, and who we are, and I think if we do a lot more of that we can actually be proud of who we are, and with that we can make a lot more changes, man.
If you live in an area you want to be part of what’s happening around in your community, and I don’t think I make a lot of difference, but you know we, we come down and we support local things like the market here, and people get to know people on a kind of basis that you would know family. So, that’s basically what New Zealand is made up of, is people that can call each other family in a way. You want to, you want to have that embracement, coming to a place where naturally you wouldn’t think is home and make it your home.
Yeah, I was brought up in Hawke’s Bay and a small community, now a lot larger than before. We had that whole community basis right back then where people could trust your neighbour, you know, and if you needed something you’d just talk to your neighbour and they would definitely help you out. You know? Coming from Hawke’s Bay up to Auckland was a big thing, and seeing the differences in how people interact here in Auckland to how they interact back home was, it was totally different. I think we need, we’ve reflected on what’s happened, and it’s taught us to be more towards, thinking about humanity things now, and looking at those sort of things now, more than anything.”
