Helping hand of experience

MARION VAN DIJK/The Nelson Mail

INSIDE KNOWLEDGE: Gordon Tamihana helps troubled young people to turn their lives around.

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If it wasn't for the social workers who helped him turn his life around, Richmond's Gordon Tamihana is clear about how his life would have panned out.

"I don't think I would be alive now, to be honest, because of the circles we were mixing in," he says.

"We slept with weapons under our pillow ... simply because of the paranoia."

Abused as a child and growing up in a large family in extreme poverty, Mr Tamihana left home the day he turned 15. He ended up living on the streets of Palmerston North and Auckland, where he "got into bad scenes and situations" and gravitated to a life of drugs, "lots of alcohol" and crime.

After hitting rock bottom in his early 20s, Mr Tamihana got the help he needed.

Drawing on his experiences, he has dedicated his working life to helping troubled young people turn their lives around.

He has worked as a child and youth worker for 17 years, working with at-risk young people in Nelson, Auckland and Napier.

He's also spent 10 years working as a youth pastor, and tells the story of a church programme he ran in Napier where he succeeded in getting Mongrel Mob children and others to mingle.

Most recently, he's worked and trained in mental health, working at Stoke's Gateway Housing Trust, supporting mental health service users to live independently.

His work has seen him become one of seven people nationally chosen to take part in the Vodafone New Zealand Foundation's World of Difference programme.

This year's recipients were chosen from 150 applicants and will have their salary paid for a year, allowing them to work for the charity of their choice.

Mr Tamihana will spend his year working as a youth worker supervisor and trainer at House 44, in Karaka St in Stoke.

He says House 44 is "an awesome community house" set up by a mother from the state housing area 13 years ago after her son killed himself.

The organisation runs a number of programmes on a small budget, and provides a welcoming, safe and healthy environment.

It has become involved in the day-to-day lives of the community, he says.

Mr Tamihana says that as well as working with young people who come through House 44, his aim for the next year is to work with youth workers there and help them implement their ideas and gain their qualifications.

"I see huge potential in the young people of Nelson, and I hope to use my World of Difference to encourage the potential out of them."

He says he can see young people's need to have the same opportunities to change that he had, and knows the level of commitment they need to make the change.

Mr Tamihana's wife Chrissie is a youth worker at The New Hub in Nelson and also works one day a week at House 44. They recently set up a youth group at St Barnabas Church. They have three children, who have all worked with young people.

Mr Tamihana will start at House 44 in February. He says he is really looking forward to it, describing working with young people as his "passion".

He was approached by House 44 several times to work there, and was eventually swayed by what the organisation stands for.

"The dream of a house where people could come was too vibrant. It brought back memories of the lady who opened her house and did the same [for me]."