Gordon | Māngere Bridge
“Personally, I would like my family and everybody to be happy and healthy, and everybody in the community to care for each other a bit more.
I was born in Wellington, but I grew up in Ōtara, and in Glen Innes, and we were pretty poor. I moved overseas and worked in companies overseas. Then I came back to New Zealand and got married and had children. I now own my own business, and I work in the business. What’s important to me is family and people. I don’t really see that money and things, you can’t take them with you. They really are just transient, and I believe that people, and the relationships you have with people is the most important thing.
My belief is that the journey of life is just between the time you live and the time you die, certain things don’t change. People go on about owning a property. The problem is, you don’t actually own the property. The property’s going to be here for thousands of years. You’re here for 100 at the most, but the people you meet, and the effects you have can have a expanding, a ripple effect through society. So the idea is if you’re nice to somebody, and they’re nice to people, and then so on and so forth, I’m thinking that’s the way you can change the world, but you have to start with yourself. So, I just try to be as nice as I can to most people I meet, and I try to teach that to my children, and the people around me.
The way I do it in this community to try and make things better is I’m a member of the Manukau Rover’s Rugby Club. I try to work with the club. I know all my neighbours. I actually go and make a point of going and visiting the neighbours. When somebody new moves in to the neighbourhood, I go and visit them. I find out if they need anything, and you know, we look after the elderly in our neighbourhood, and we look after the people in our neighbourhood. A number of the men in the neighbourhood work long hours. We keep an eye on their families while they’re out at work, and we just, we just look after each other, and we spend time with each other, and we listen to each other, because we all have different beliefs. We’ve got people from all religious backgrounds in our neighbourhood and all cultures. We don’t judge other people for their beliefs or their culture. We judge them on the person they are, and the character they show via just how nice they are to people, that sort of thing, and I think if everybody did that we wouldn’t have a problem.”
