What’s a challenge you overcame?

Ryan | Rotorua

Living and working in Africa helped Ryan recognise the social inequality that exists in Aotearoa.

“Instead of standing in front of them, stand beside them. There’s heaps of opportunities there to assist rather than judge.

When I first moved to Africa for the first time – I moved to Uganda back in 2012 – honestly, dealing with the culture shock that happens there was a huge challenge. Probably the big change, or the big challenge there is obviously skin colour, and the privileges that you start with by just turning up being white.

You see poverty there, and it’s easy to see, right. It’s all around you. We travelled for maybe eight years and then coming back to New Zealand, I actually realised that the privilege and poverty line here is drastic as well. And I guess I see that more in my job now as a firefighter – just because it’s not Africa where it’s so in-your-face, it actually is here if you take the time to look and actually be more empathetic towards people that maybe didn’t have the same opportunities that you had and were dealt a different hand.

I grew up in a life where we weren’t rich, we weren’t poor. We were just medium, straight in the middle of the road. We were okay. But I never noticed it, not until it’s right in your face. Once it’s in your face and you actually just take your blinkers off, you can see so much more.”