What does safety look and feel like to you?

Paul | Whakatū

Paul started a boxing program in 2011, creating a whānau-like community that helps vulnerable people – from youth to those with Parkinson’s – find strength and connection.

“The last 13 or 15 years of my life I’ve been running an organisation called Victory Boxing. I was deputy principal of Victory Primary School. And we’re dealing with some young guys down there. There were about 20 kids at the time and they were awesome, awesome young guys. But they were putting their energy into some bad places. So, after trying heaps of different things to try and get them a bit more evened out and a bit more positive.

We tried lots of things but some things work, some things didn’t. So we tried something different. And we asked them, ‘what do you guys want to do?’ And they said ‘boxing’. So I went ‘all right, okay’.

And I love boxing. I’ve always been interested in and boxing is the sport I love. When we started we had 20 kids. That was back in 2011. So now all this time later, we have about 500 kids go through a year. And all different types of stories, but the main common thing is that people are just trying to find themselves and just want to try and feel good about who they are, you know?

So it takes a really safe but strong place. So whether we’ve got a young fella going off or a young lady going off to fight in a boxing tournament or it might be some young person and their fight’s just getting up in the morning and facing the world or whatever it might be. It’s just a place where you leave feeling better than when you arrived. That’s the whole purpose of it.

Because you’re often working with people at their most vulnerable. So people with Parkinson’s, it’s the most unwell they’ve ever been. And as you get unwell, you world gets really small. So that connection is so vital. So the whole place has become like a massive whānau for everybody.”