Category: Personal

Inaugural #twitteraunties meeting – 15 February 2014

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Yesterday, a group of people came together to celebrate being Aunties. Not Aunties in the traditional sense. These people care about women and children they have never met. I hope to change that somewhat. That having been said it’s largely a relationship that appears to have one side.

I can assure you that it is not.  The women that are the benefactors of  your graciousness and kindness are appreciative beyond words. Every thing, every gestures, builds them up. Kris and I make sure they know that is true.

And no one is more an Aunty to these women and children than Christina Teikamata, the Refuge co-ordinator, and Karen, and Trish who work there too.  She loves her “mummies” and seeks to do all she can to provide for them whilst they are there, and when they leave she is there too.

So what we are doing is reinforcing Christina’s efforts. Providing an invaluable base of support and resources, from which she can draw when needed. (Which is every day).

And so to last night’s meeting. I was pretty stunned at the love in that room. Poor old H1 and H2 were a bit embarrassed ( H2 said “that was AWKWARD”) but also heartened and inspired, lifted up by all that love and encouragement. And also the knowledge that other people have been where they are – people who are not poor, who are not brown. People who’ve done it, and they can do it too. People who assured them that this is the first steps to their new life. A life without violence, a life where they get to love themselves, and choose who shares that life with them, reinforced by more knowledge about what’s possible, and what it means to be safe, in all senses of the word.

The people who came to the meeting offered a range of skills, which they may not be aware they have. At the moment, we’re all feeling things out. What needs doing, and what does not. What works, and what does not. And as Christina said, if something doesn’t work, we just need to tweak it.

These were also people who are very brave – none more so than H1 and H2 who were pretty anxious about the whole thing. Having said that, I felt it was important that those who want to be Aunties have more than a passing connection with people they are helping. So that you can see that this is not a thankless effort, that people are being touched and affected, by what we are doing. That connections being made is about reciprocity, about understanding that this is not a one way street. Being so involved with the Refuge, for me, has helped me in more ways than I have helped them, to be sure.

To ensure those connections hold, and are strengthened, Christina and I want to make the meetings a monthly thing.

The first mentoring sessions – for women who have left Refuge – are on the 20th and 27th of February.  Two weeks afterwards, we will have the next Aunties meeting. I hope you can be there, and add your voice to the growing army of us who seek to speak for these women and children at a time when they cannot speak for themselves.

TIL: A Xmas party

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Over the last month or so, I have been getting you all together, curating presents, and household goods, and clothes. Collecting parcels from far and wide. Keeping everyone up to date on the happenings, all in the hope that my passion for the refuge would be catching. Would go viral, if you like.  My husband has put up with people knocking on our door at all hours of the day, and night. Our dog has seen people she loves, and people who are strangers to her, come to our house, and has barked herself hoarse (not really, but she should have. And she smashed a window in the process, so it was a bit anxious making for her).
I’ve had people come to my work with extraordinary things for the families at Refuge, and offers of more help. I’ve had emails offering help in many forms, all of which has materialised. My boss has put up with me sloping off early to make deliveries to Refuge, and distractedly checking my phone for important emails and messages while “on the floor” (ie with the kids).

So today was always going to be a bit of a zenith. And it didn’t disappoint. I left work early (shhhh) and arrived at Refuge in good time. Time enough to sit in the shade with O, and chew that fat. Time enough to dress J in his new clothes, and jandals, that Demelza had sent up, and that had arrived just this morning. I sat and watched all the kids – big and little – on the bouncy castle, roaming around chatting, their mothers watching over them. There was a bit of mischief, but nothing injurious, and everyone was happy. As well as 5 of the 6 women who currently live in Refuge and their kids, there was 25 other families. Ex-residents. All women who are doing well in their lives. More on that later.

I met D who, once a week, teaches the women to cook the vegetables out of the gardens they’re growing. Some of the stuff they eat, and like, but most of it they’re not accustomed to, so the excess is given to the families in the community that Christina still supports, in one way or another.

I was sat upon and cuddled by TP and J and B, who were anxious to see what Santa was bringing with him. They knew there was lots of presents – we had delivered them last night, and they knew who they were from too. “When can I open the Aunties’ presents?” TP asked me. Not yet, darling, I said. Not yet. Wait for Santa.

A car pulled up the driveway, and two men got out. One with a camera, the other with a pad, and I knew they were from the Herald on Sunday, and shortly thereafter, Christina called me into the office so we could talk to them. The reporter asked me how I had got involved, so I explained. I told him about all of you, and how important sustaining support for the Refuge was, and how committed many of you are in your support. Christina told him about who they support, and why. About how many of the women, when they first arrive, don’t have a voice – nobody to speak for them, nobody to care for them in the ways they need. Louise told him how all of your support has made it easier for them to do what they do. Your generosity and compassion is making a difference to so many people. I explained to the reporter that just as I am developing a relationship with the women, and the kids, and the staff at Refuge, you too have become invested. You know the names of the women, and their children. You know who they are as soon as I know who they are. You care, you want the best for them, we all do.

The interview went well, and the photographer took photos of Christina and I wrapping presents and chatting, and then that was that. I hope we did you proud.

And then………Santa arrived. C explained to me that she had given all your gifts to the women in the Refuge this morning to store in the cupboards for Xmas Day, or to take home to their families, and that they had kept aside just a couple for each child.

So I sat with H, and some of the kids, as they started getting their presents. TP was fascinating. After asking me if she could open some presents, when the reality came, she sat very quietly, and didn’t open a one. I said she was allowed, so she opened one – a scooter. She was overcome, and didn’t know what to do. She said thankyou to me. I didn’t know what to say. It isn’t me they have to thank, after all, but I said she was welcome, anyway.

B opened her fairy dress and little pink slippers. Ooooooh, she said. Pretty! (The child is obsessed with pretty things. And heels. She loves heels). And we immediately put the dress on and she was as proud as punch.

K was embarrassed, and asked if she could go into the room to open hers. Off she went, but came back with it, then went back to the room. She, too, was overcome.

J wasn’t allowed to open his, and I pleaded with O. So many for Xmas Day, I said. Just one, now. She relented, and we opened it together. He got one flap open – it’s a fire engine! he declared. How do you know? I asked him, and shut the box. Because, he said, I just know. He was right too. And he sat there hugging it. “It’s my first ever fire engine!” he said. And I was thrilled for S who had so thoughtfully picked it out.

After presents, most of the extra families were disappearing, and C  asked the Refuge women to come into the office where she gave them their food baskets, and their cosmetic/toiletry gifts. H looked at me and said “I didn’t know people were like this”. I assured her that I had meant what I had said to her: that if she needed anything, we had her back. And her kids’. A said thankyou for everything we have done for her, and I reminded her that it’s not over, that as long as she has need of us, we’re here. And L, who has her new house, and is moving out in the weekend to start her new life with her grandchildren looked me dead in the eye, and said “I love you. You’re too much”. But she is. She’s astonishing and graceful. And she’s happy. For the first time in a long time. I even got a hug from O, who’s moved into her new house, and I told her that the ideas she had given me for cooking lessons were coming to fruition.

A woman I had seen before Santa came to hug me, and say thank you for all we are doing for Refuge. She was here a year ago, before C  came, and she was so impressed with all the changes. Next year,  she’s embarking on 5 years of study for a Social Work degree. She goes back to Refuge regularly to help out. Because most of the women who leave, if they are able, want to give back in some way to the place that helped them so much. “This place really is refuge” she told me “in every meaning of the word. It gave me back my life.”

I talked to S – who had come to Refuge not only from violence, but from The Lodge.  A notorious boarding house in where crime, and substance abuse and violence are rife, and yet HNZ still place families there. S has 6 children, and all of them lived in one tiny room, before she came to refuge. Now, she says, they have a 4 bedroom house, but they only sleep in two of the rooms, because they’re not used to all the space.

And finally it was just C  and I, talking about what needs to be done, and how we’re going to achieve that. We talked about what needs were now being met, that weren’t before. Now, she says, she’s able to give the excess clothes/shoes/goods/food that come in to women in the community that she works with. Some of the exresidents. But they aren’t fully supported, so I wanted to clarify expectations of the Aunties. We are there to support the women in Refuge. That’s our job. Their needs, we will meet. And anything left over will, and does, go to the exresidents.

You may never meet them, but you have invested time and love into them – time and love that they may have never had before coming to Refuge. I thank you for that, for trusting me to know what I’m doing, for blindly – in some cases – following me into places you may never have been before. I hope you carry on with me. I do. It’s too big a job for one person. And I want to do this for C. For the women and their children. When one family moves out, another moves in. (There is a new Mama coming in over Xmas – she has 6 kids. Can you imagine? They will be living in a reasonably small space.) And we’ll help them too. Because that’s what we do, now.

People helping people

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Today was a very busy day. Let’s call it Community Outreach work. There was dropping off of stuff, and money, to Miss A this morning. And then phonecalls from Refuge to further discuss Miss A, and their needs. And then a brand new microwave arrived, courtesy of a lovely woman, which needed to be taken to Refuge. I had avoided knowing where it was. There had been offers previously just to drop stuff off there but it was easier not to know, and to act as a drop off point. But the microwave needed taking to them, there was no way around it, so go I did. Glad I am that I made the effort. It’s a small place, hidden away down a long drive way but the only security they seem to have is gates, which they have a chain around, I imagine for locking at night. I parked the car, and stepped out, and who was the person who greeted me, but the one woman that you have all been helping in various ways, with things for her baby that’s arriving in August.

If I expected sadness, I saw none. Only happy women going about the business of cooking a communal lunch, and small children toddling around under the watchful eye of the happy women. Beautiful children who have, I know, witnessed things that no child should ever have to. There are 12 children under 5 there, I have no idea where they fit them all in, but they seem to. So I took the microwave out of the box, installed it for them, and chatted for a while to one of the workers, there. “Thanks for being our friend” she said. I thanked her for letting us all help them out. It’s no small thing you are all doing – whether it be RTing and getting the word out, or donating clothes, or money, all of it is so very much appreciated. Because they have no other means – there is government funding, but the women pay their own way. They stay there for a short while, or a long while. However long it takes them to get on their feet. Many of them arrive with just the clothes on their back.

The woman I have asked you to help, in particular, is one of those women. She and I chatted about her needs – she has enough baby clothes, she says. And she and one of the co-ordinators are making a list of her needs now. For she has nothing, and no-one. Just these women, and her children. A beautiful curly haired, doe eyed child of almost three; her son who is 17 months, and this baby on the way. She had no-one to turn to, but Refuge saved her. They pay her way, because she’s not a NZ resident, and they look after her, and her kids. These are the people you’re helping. The women who have nothing else, and often, no-one else to turn to. Whose families can’t, or won’t help them. They may have no family here, but the partner who made their lives so impossible that to save themselves and their children they had to leave. So know, that you are good people, helping other good people. That they need your help more than ever, so that they can find their own way out of a scary and demoralising situation; that your help enables the refuge to carry on it’s good and great work of looking after people who have forgotten how to do just that.

 

WHY SOMEONE HAS TO FEED THE CHILDREN

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This morning in the Herald was an article which was, the way I read it, basically Bill English saying: Hey, these parents are irresponsible jerks, so we’re quite prepared to take care of their kids, since they won’t. Oh no, hang on, that is what he is actually saying here. 

“There’s no doubt that there are kids in homes where there is not a strong sense of responsibility. It’s the obligation of the rest of us to do something about that.”

Perhaps someone needs to give Mr English some brain physiology lessons and explain to him what really happens when children are not eating properly. Poor nutrition means that there are certain things a child’s brain needs – to be able to absorb information, ask questions, focus for any decent period of time for example ie learning  – that they aren’t getting. Dr Alan Greene explains it.

You see where we’re going with this, don’t you? It’s pretty simple. Brains need feeding, and they need feeding with particular sorts of food for our bodies to function optimally. And if our brains and bodies are functioning optimally, we grow up to become adults who are still walking wounded (external factors, they are a bitch), but at least we have good decision making processes, because we are able to take in information, process it effectively, and come to conclusions. If your brain is starved as a child, that really isn’t going to happen. And if that doesn’t happen, what you tend to get is, yes you guessed it, people having children and repeating the cycle. That’s what we in the biz call cyclical poverty.

And what of children who were not left hungry, and grow up and find themselves in a situation which means that their kids aren’t being fed adequately? Well, that assumes, you see, that everyone understands the physiology of the brain. Because, quite frankly, most people don’t. They’re just trying to do the best by their kids. I would say, as a nonparent myself, that most people find themselves having babies and going “Holy hell! What is this squirming little thing? And how do I stop it crying?” But you see, the difference between people who are raised with love, and care, and proper nutrition, and have done okay at school, and most importantly of all, are raised in an environment where they see these things done – care taken, school/learning is important, love makes the world go round, and even if one of these things is missing, the kid has a chance – so they at least have examples of what parenting looks like, and people who haven’t had any or most of that? Is vast. An absolute ocean of knowledge separates those who have had at least some of those things, and those that haven’t. So there are people who have been raised with love in their hearts and homes, and good food in their belly, and they still find themselves behind the eight ball, unable, for whatever reason, to feed their kids adequately. It could be that they have mental health issues. It just might be that they were happily ensconced in a loving relationship, and then one parent left, and everything came tumbling down, and now they find themselves on a single parent benefit, with four kids to feed, and the most expedient thing is to give the kids what they want, and if that’s a pie and a cookie, hey at least it’s food. Because if Bill English and his cohorts don’t understand why a child needs to have a good breakfast in the morning, then how the hell are the rest of us oiks supposed to know any of that shit, either? And therein lies the problem. When you come from a happyish home, and you’ve been fed, and society is set up in a way which favours you from birth by dint of your skin colour, or your gender, or your family’s educative philosophy, or what job your Dad/Mum had to make all of that possible, and you’ve never met anyone who’s hungry or poor, and you’ve read newspapers all your life and listened to people, who tell you that being poor is a choice, then it is very easy not to know certain things. And to make judgements on other peoples’ lives, to be and remain ignorant of other peoples’ pain.

I would say to Bill English, and all the other politicians who show ignorance about what kids need to be successful, happy, productive members of society: Brains need food. It starts with that. If your brain has at least the building blocks in place, the other stuff can get sorted out eventually. Your place in society is one of privilege and power. Don’t use it to make kids suffer, because in the end, if they do, we all suffer. Crime rates, domestic abuse, any societal ill you can think of – a goodly proportion of the adults at the sharp end of those statistics you are fond of quoting were kids who didn’t get a decent feed in them at some point early in their lives.