Tarsha | Māngere
“I’m actually really hard on my family, so that’s a tricky one, but I think I put a lot more passion into the work that I do, working with the families in our communities.
I work in the emergency transitional housing contract, and a lot, you see a lot of families, a lot of singles, a lot of sole parents, and it’s not a pretty picture. There is this one case that I had, and a lot of them come with a lot of self-doubt, and literally feeling worthless and useless because they failed to provide as a parent, multiple things; the fact that they couldn’t even house themselves, let alone their children. They don’t really see the resilience and motivation that they actually have, to persevere. So, on a particular case that I had; she literally, when she got a Housing New Zealand offer, she literally burst out in tears. Caught me off guard completely. Caught me off guard, and she was so thankful, and yet she didn’t realise she was the one that actually did all the hard yards.
I don’t know if special is the word, but I think time is definitely something that’s precious, and I think if you can give a little time to somebody because any minute or any second can just make that difference.
Where did I grow up? Well, I’m definitely Hurricanes-hard. So, I grew up in Wellington. I moved up after I graduated college.
What do I value? Definitely family. Family time. Time. I have a broken and blended family. I’m very proud when I say that, because we’re all very close, and regardless of how hard I am on my family and how strict I am, I know without a doubt that they’ve got me. So, I think if anything, regardless of where the family’s made up of friends or your neighbours, or the street that you live on, or the hood that you’re from, family is family.
So, my family’s pretty much the reason why I, I probably wear this top for. I am where I am today in life. I grew up in a state house. I grew up with a single mum. I have five older brothers and then seven younger siblings under me, and two younger. Oh, seven younger sisters and then two younger brothers under me, and even though I’m number six, I still kind of shot-call the family, but they’ve, my family bring, they have their own character, and they have their own strengths, and obviously they have a lot of weaknesses in that, too but it’s what makes us strong, and if I have to be at a particular level, then my expectation of my family is that they’ve got to be up there too and that’s purely based on the past that we’ve had, I guess.”
