Taz | Onehunga, Auckland

“Well, I suppose people will be talking about how they’ve been brave from Corona, but I actually want to talk about how I’ve been brave in helping immigrants who come to New Zealand.

Being a market supervisor here, I’ve been able to courageously work with women that struggle in life. They need opportunities, and going out of my way to create the work and support them, it’s not an easy task, it takes a lot of persistence, and I think I’ve been brave like that, to help these people. 

It’s incredible that as difficult as it can be, people are coming from different religious backgrounds, different ethnic groups, but it’s very rewarding to feel that you’re part of making a contribution and a tangible difference. When you see when they start, they have their license, they start to get traction. It’s really exciting. So, I think I’m learning that it’s worth the effort. It’s worth the time spent in it. 

I’m a Zimbabwean by birth, and I came to New Zealand in 2002, an economic refugee, and I guess my journey to helping others and ending up in this market. Prior to this I created a community market after the earthquakes in Christchurch, it just emerged from understanding and my values as a Christian, I wanted to do something positive, and as I’m an immigrant, I know how that feels to leave home, take a big gamble, try to build a life, and it felt natural to try and help people who are in that situation. That’s why I’m here.

Wesley Market, this is it and I’m supervising this for a year. As I said, I’ve tried to help some women. One over there is starting now to cook food, and we have more that will join her, under a micro-enterprise project. Down at the end by the river, we also have fruit and veges. Some are local growers. We do cool things here. People might not know. We are plastic-free. We are doing recycling. We have a worm farm. We have proper waste management, and we are obviously doing micro-enterprise. So, it’s a really cool market. I would encourage people to come on down and check it out every Tuesday and Friday 7:30 to 12:30.

I’m actually an MBA graduate. I’ve been trained in business. That’s my background and naturally because I talk a lot, I’m a salesman. That’s my qualification, in terms of experience, but I’ve been led to think about where is the interface that business skills can make a contribution in the community space. Now, that wasn’t the flashiest subject to study, but having studied ethnic entrepreneurs, migrants I find that these sorts of people, these sorts of businesses are not cumbered. They’re easy to set up. They help individual families directly. There’s no big corporates involved in between them, except those that can help, like the Council if they want to. So, I love that. I love that you see what you’re doing. In the corporate world, somebody’s driving you, but not seeing what you’re doing. They might not even appreciate it, but I like this for that reason. I’m part of the action.”