Rina Kopu
Rina has been with the HEART Movement for a short time, but she already feels like whānau. Rina grew up in Tāmaki, Glen Innes, and Pt England, during the 1980s before moving out to South Auckland in 1999, where she is currently living. Along with her recent connection to HEART, her daughter has settled in Tāmaki with her whānau. Rina says it feels like she is being called back to Tāmaki and feels good about this.
Rina’s initial connection to HEART came through Peter Thorburn who she says is her favourite facilitator. Rina had attended several of his training workshops in Manukau to support her learning for her study in Level 4 Mental Health and Addiction course at Future Skills Academy. Rina saw the HEART online training workshops with Peter Thorburn pop up on her Facebook timeline over lockdown and was delighted to be able to continue her learning. She says the online training workshops were awesome and thought they were so successful because they were accessible to people. All of Peter’s workshops during lockdown attracted the maximum of 100 participants. While the workshop participants were mostly muted, there were times in the workshop for the audience to share. Rina felt safe to share her experiences and thoughts despite the large audience.
Through attending these workshops she became familiar with the HEART Movement and made contact to see if she could do her volunteer hours with HEART - a requirement for her study. Rina’s first meeting with HEART was at the Women's Koru group. She recalls meeting some local wāhine who worked or lived in Tāmaki and instantly felt a connection with the group. Rina was quick to offer help on her first day with HEART, taking away a stack of Matariki Star Hunt posters which she put up around Gl, Panmure, and Point England and even on her car door!
Since then Rina has come on board to support the HEART working group. She is currently helping in the Lockdown Stories Showcase planning group and supports the administration of the HEART training workshops. Going forward her role will be out in the community doing kanohi ki te kanohi, connecting with people and telling them about the HEART Movement, and hearing what the community would like from HEART. Community engagement and advocacy are familiar to Rina from her role for the past four years as a Service User and Consumer Representative for Mental Health and Addictions at Drive Consumer Counties Manukau. She attends monthly hui with various health and social services providers to communicate feedback and advice to current services drawing from her own experiences, as well as those who she has connected within the community. She is also a Tenant Advisory Representative at Compass Housing, providing feedback and advice for her community where she lives.
When she finishes her study she hopes to find work in the community where she can connect and help people using her skills and real-life experiences. She also hopes to be a good role model for her generation and to those who have experienced trauma to show that there is a way forward. It is through her journey towards wellbeing that she has come to feel ok about returning to Tāmaki, a place that has mixed memories for her. Forgiveness of people in her past, faith, counseling, and the Dual Awareness Protocol which she refers to when needed, are all tools that are part of her well-being kete.
Healthy relationships for Rina encompass connection, love, hope, support, listening, participation, ideas, and honoring the Treaty of Waitangi. She says these aspects apply to all relationships with family, friends, couples, community, church, youth, parents, government, and service providers. At HEART we are grateful to have Rina helping out with day-to-day operations and we are also glad that she is back in the Tāmaki community to reconnect and offer her wisdom. If you see Rina out and about, say kia ora!
Nau mai hoki mai Rina