What’s a challenge you overcame?

Kadin | Whakatāne

When Kadin joined the Services Academy he found a mentor who was invested in his future and unlocked his potential. 

“I’m not the best at academics and all that. I’m more sporty and hands-on. So I found it quite hard to learn in school.

I joined a service academy. Do you know what a service academy is? So, it’s like cadets, like a military sort of alignment. We have a group of eighteen of us and we would just do whatever, and we had one teacher, we call him Staff – he’s our role model basically.

And growing with him, he cares for all of us. He calls us out on our stuff, like say we didn’t do this assignment, he would come up to us and say, “What’s happening with this? What do we need to sort out?” He’d just push you to be better because he knows you and he knows what you’re capable of.

That was the first teacher that I’ve felt truly cared for my future and everything and wanted me to be what I’m going to be. He sees what I’m capable of. It’s helped me build my character a lot more and going out and talking to random people as well, getting new friends definitely. Also just having an understanding of what’s going on around me as well.

It’s been the best year of school of my life, to be honest.”