What does safety look and feel like to you?
Sharon | Whakatū
Sharon highlights how being seen and respected starts with something as simple as correctly saying someone’s name, which fosters safety, belonging, and affirmation.
“I’ve been in education for almost 20 years. Long time. And that’s the number one thing for me: if you meet a young person and you’re calling a roll, give enough f***s to find out how to say that name right.
Some young people will call you out, and I appreciate that, but many won’t, and you’ll just say their name wrong for a year. And in their head, they’ll be like, ‘you don’t even know me.’ And that’s trash.
People need to know how to say my name right. And I know in a space, if they don’t say my name right, they don’t see me. So often, I’ll go into a hui or whatever, we’ll introduce ourselves, and then it’ll be Sharon the whole way. It’s about mana.
If someone says your name right, it enhances your mana. It upholds your mana, it respects who you are, it means that you feel like, ‘oh, they don’t know me, but at least they can get that right. I matter enough.’ It’s about mattering, really – whether or not you matter.
And I think if people think it’s too hard to get people’s name right, that just shows that they don’t give a s**t about anyone other than themselves enough. And sometimes that’s because they aren’t safe. They don’t feel safe in themselves, and kei te pai.”
