Hannah – Auckland.
“Good question. [The] last time I felt proud, actually, [was] when everything in England was happening.
Like the whole Manchester concert, because I’m from England. It was just like real cool to watch and I was just proud to see what they were doing together as a community; seeing how everyone came together to be one big community. There were no individual differences in that one moment, despite what happened, just exactly the same [and] all one person almost. You know?
So I’m from England and I moved here four and a half years ago. Right now I’m at uni, at Auckland Uni, studying psychology and sports science. I didn’t really see a lot like growing up, but I know my dad was working in London, so he saw the London Riots and everything, but that’s about as much as I experienced.
You feel connected as part of a community, but at the same time it’s really scary knowing that people so close to home are getting treated the way they are, and having to go through things that they are, but at the same time it’s reassuring that you’re here where nothing major is happening compared to the rest of the world.
It’s kind been a bit of a mixed emotion almost. I guess just seeing things in England it brings people together. Almost the fear and the extreme activities it’s really heart-breaking, but, you know, seeing what is happening in response and making those communities [is] almost like finding the positive within the fear, and not letting it consume you.
Yeah, personal things in my life you’ve just got to see the positive in. There’s no other way to it. Things like my uncle is severely disabled and he has been the whole of my life, and one of my best friends in England [has] cystic fibrosis. So things like that, things that can’t be cured, you just have to deal with it, and obviously you can’t let it get you down, like all the time, so you’ve got to pick out the little positives even if there’s just a few.
My dad was made redundant in England, like 10 years ago, and then he was head-hunted and they offered him a job here and then another job came up in England so he took that, and then a few years later he got made redundant and he got offered the same job here. So it was kind of a meant to be situation.”
