What does community mean to you?

Lucy | Te Whanganui-a-Tara

Lucy shares how growing up in Ophir, a 70-person Otago village, taught her community. It means everyone playing a role, trading in skills, and always being there to support each other.

“I remember when we first moved down there. We were moving onto a piece of land that used to be a rubbish dump and abandoned vet shed. We were trying to build it up so it was liveable and it wasn’t done in time for winter which is really cold down there [in Ophir], like really, really cold. And we were basically given a place to stay in the village, for like a year while we were working on that. That was just out of kindness and support and I’ll never be able to forget that.

I was born in Christchurch. And then moved down to Otago when I was nine. And I mostly grew up there in the countryside near a small town called Ophir. It was about 70 people there at the time. In small towns like that and villages, really, everyone plays a role and there’s someone who runs the post office, someone who runs the pub, someone who has a little BnB for tourists to stop by. There’s a café. People can fix things. Everyone can fix something. You never have to go far.

My dad is a blacksmith. So he had a workshop and a business making knives for a long time. And my mum is a jeweller and a gemologist and a teacher and they both work together to make wedding rings. Dad having the workshop, he could polish the curling stones so the people could go curling and sharpen people’s knives. Instead of doing stuff for money a lot of the time you do stuff for trade. So he’d do something for someone. They could help him out with something else. Me and my brother were always looked after. We never really needed a babysitter.

You really see having a small town, what that does to people and how they do rely on each other for a lot of support. It’s mostly older people and sometimes people get sick and there’s always someone looking after them or looking after their house, or their animals, you never have to look far for someone to help out or someone’s always offering.

It’s not something you have to try hard to do. I don’t think it’s something that comes naturally to everyone. I think for some people it does, but I think you have to figure out how to do it in your own way. You’ve got to know yourself. You’ve got to know your skills and what’s going to be helpful to other people. And what you’re good at. And also, what you love doing.

My small town, Ophir, is really important to me.”