What has whānau taught you?

Christine (Ngāti Kurī) | Tāmaki Makaurau

In Christine’s whānau, the younger generation is showing what the power of aroha can achieve.

“We’re very lucky that the young ones got to grow up thinking the world was like, a good place. But as we got older, we got to learn the stories that our aunties and our parents had to go through. Then we started to learn that the world was not as safe or happy all the time. They just made it feel like that.

When I look backwards, there’s a lot of mamae, a lot of uncomfortable stuff, a lot of grief. But then when I look forward, because of that, there’s been like a little switch. I feel like we were forced into it, where we had to learn how to appreciate each other more, but then make it known.

Like, actually say it instead of just assuming that everyone in the whānau can just feel the aroha. I feel like that got lost before. So now, because of circumstances, we’ve had to just be brave and let each other know that though the world might feel like it’s against you, we have a group that we were born with that’s here to awhi us in any way. You just gotta say it.

Which is not a very normal thing in my whānau to do.”