The kids of Palmerston North

Tu Tangata, Issue 28, 1 February 1986, Page 12

The kids of Palmerston North

The Highbury Hoods, The Awapuni Arrows. Makes you think of Sherwood Forest and a merry band of outlaws, but it hasn’t been that merry for some people in the community of Highbury, Palmerston North.

The media, the kids, some shopkeepers, the police and various government and non-government social agencies have all had their say publicly about the street kids of the Highbury suburb. Much has been spoken about their harassment of some shopkeepers and their customers, and the boredom which drives them onto the suburban streets. So much so that the kids of the nearby Awapuni suburb formed their own gang.

But the fact that they're mainly Maori children, born and bred in Highbury, a state-housing area has been seen by most onlookers as just a part of the problem.

Coming at the problem from a maori point of view is doubly difficult because what you see with these kids is not what you get. They don’t relate well to tikanga maori because their parents aren’t that knowledgeable themselves nor do they have the educational background in european matters.

Into this mix come maatua whangai officers from the Department of Maori Affairs. A week-long hui was organised and publicised by house-to-house visiting. The place, Te Kauwhata marae. Bulls. The object, to get the kids and their parents into a different environment, where wairua maori could be nurtured, and coping skills taught.

Ned Lawton, maatua whangai officer, said some parents didn’t come because of fear of being ignorant on the marae. This was after it was pointed out to them that the week would be ‘light’ on tikanga maori. However 24 kids who were only too glad to take advantage of a legal week off school, and some solo parents, came to try their hands at breaking the pattern.

Ned said the week was big on practical things like getting the children and parents together cooking and preparing food, waiting on tables and learning the proper meaning of serving one another. Te Kauwhata kaumatua were on hand to be the resource but Ned says it was the kids and parents that made it work for themselves.

He remembers one night spent beside a creek waiting for the eels to bite. He, and others more advanced in years than their charges, were feeling the cold but enthusiasm was so high that the group

stayed put for some hours anticipating a big catch, which never came. For Ned it was also the eagerness to say the grace in maori and to learn waiata that made the difference. For the leader of the Hoods (so called because of the hoods on their parkas) the week meant a change of name as well as a change of heart. He was Ho Chi, but was renamed Hau.

Ned’s a bit apprehensive about saying there’ll be a complete reversal in behaviour, as the majority of the parents didn't share in the marae week and it’s a slow process with long term goals. The follow-up is to take place in the homes, as parents and children realise that other families across this country face similar difficulties, and that support and help from the community makes the load that much easier to bear.

Breaking the pattern of despair and hopelessness in the homes is something that Ned Lawton is faced with time and time again. But Ned says it’s touched his own whanau and he understands why some kids in institutions dread going back to their old stamping grounds because of the associations, habits and attitudes in that environment. He sees the need in some cases to move children away from a destructive home environment and place them with other members of their whanau.

But while he’s adamant that kids who’ve played up and been in trouble should be ‘straight talked to’ and not molly-coddled, he says aroha should cover all, and people should be given a second chance and sometimes a last chance. He recalls a time recently where he asked a couple to give their whanaunga another chance. The relation had wrecked the house he’d been given and also the car. However they gave him a last chance, as after all, he was their uncle.

It's this ‘straight talking’ to kids and their parents, plus the support to work at changing the environment, that Ned feels can make the difference with the Highbury Hoods. By getting the community together sharing their concerns, it’s hoped that the younger children will be encouraged by their parents to keep going to school, so that the pattern of not having a future can be broken in their lives.

Maori Affairs community officer, Evonne Marshall says the large number of solo mums in the Highbury community who are pakeha with Maori children also makes for more complications sometimes. She says it’s a matter of sorting out identity as well as personal relationships.

In Highbury now, it’s like truce time, but the reputation of belligerance is still before some people. Where previously parents may have taken their problems to the pub, they are now being encouraged to share the frustrations of unemployment, lack of vision for their kids and other hassles, with others in the area. One idea to come forward has been for a building for the kids to get together in.

A church marae, St Michaels, has been recently established right behind the shopping centre but not all feel comfortable on it or even feel they have access to it. This is probably a measure of where the urban Maori/pakeha families are at in reaching for the resources in the community. As Ned Lawton said, “We are all born with the taha wairua, the difference is how it is fed from birth."