Mel | Raetihi, Manawatū – Whanganui

“This was brave for me, because I am quite a closed-off, reserved person and I don’t like to be in the limelight in any which way possible. But I will do it if it’s going to help or benefit some other person, in whichever way.

Even though I am out in the community quite a bit, when it comes to being filmed or photographed or speaking publicly, it is quite hard for me. So, I feel quite a bit brave doing this right now. 

I’ve walked a lot of different shoes throughout my lifetime, but I just choose to take them as learning curves, and turn those negative situations into positive situations, and I think that’s why I enjoy the mahi that I do here in Ōhakune so much, because I can relate to different situations. 

I’ve worn different pairs of shoes and been on different pathways and stuff, different types of domestic violence. I’ve had a child who was suicidal. Just very confronting issues that actually made me, stand in my tracks and wonder, how am I going to get my family through this?  So, everybody does it in their own different way, but for me, it was good to have the whānau support, have the relationship that I have with my son. He was able to come and talk to me, and we were able to navigate our way through that. So, things are good now, and that’s why I say I can take the negatives from those different journeys, and turn them into positives by supporting and empathising with people that I work with, on an everyday basis. 

I work for Ngā Waihua o Paerangi, formerly known as Ngāti Rangi Trust, here in Ōhakune, and I’ve been here for nearly five years. I work in the Hauoratanga space which is around whānau wellbeing. It’s around family harm prevention. It’s about education around whānau health, whatever that looks like for the whānau themselves, and absolutely love my mahi. There’s not a day in the last five years that I’ve thought, I don’t feel like going to work today. So, it doesn’t feel like a job to me. It just feels like getting out there and helping people to have a healthier lifestyle. Resilience was a huge thing, just being put outside of your comfort zone because I’m a very structured person. I like to know when things are happening and just to have stuff like that in a really unstable environment to start with. It’s resilience, it’s thinking fast on your feet, but just making sure that you have all of the right supports in place so you can draw on anybody that you can trust. Friend, whānau, teacher, colleague, as long as you’ve got that one person, and if not, then dial some, some number. I know there’s heaps of numbers out there that you can get the support from, but that’s probably the key thing for me.

I was actually born in Whanganui, which is not far from here, and then when I was three my parents separated, so we moved away to Cambridge first, up in the Waikato, and then to Raglan for a few years, then back to Cambridge. Then I ended up moving back here to Ōhakune about 18 years ago, with my two sons, who are now almost 22 and almost 20. Then I met my husband, my partner in crime, and we’ve got two daughters together, as well.”

** For free support for young people, or people supporting young people, contact Youthline 0800 376 633 or free text 234.  For specialised help with family violence, free call 0800 456 450 or www.areyouok.org.nz/i-need-help/**