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Both Janine and her husband Martin grew up in Otangarei, an underserved suburb in the North of Whangarei. When they returned as adults to raise their kids there, they recognised that a lack of support services had taken a toll - so they decided to do something about it.
Photography by Emily Chalk
“Over the years Otangarei has had its moments but when we came back and bought a house here, there were no services - we were left to our own devices,” says Janine. “We had grown up in this community but there was nothing here for us to inherit.” Being a people-focussed person, Janine knew right away that she wanted to make a positive impact and told her husband Martin, ‘I don’t want to just exist in my community, I want to live in it.’”
Janine’s first opportunity came to pass quickly when she was prevailed upon to sort out the local childcare. “A respected elder Daisy Holtz came to me and said, ‘The Playcentre is gonna close down, you can be the president and make sure it stays open’. She was a formidable person, and you didn’t say no to her,” laughs Janine, “but I didn’t have any qualifications! Basically, I’d been at school and then got married at 16.”
Despite not feeling ready, Janine took on the mantle and following that went even further, co-founding the Trust in 1991. They began with a budgeting service, helping families make their money go further, “It wasn’t big mortgages or credit card debt because back then, Māori weren’t allowed to get loans,” she says, shaking her head. “We were helping out with bread and butter stuff”.
Since that first step, more than 30 years ago, the Trust has expanded greatly. It now includes a primary health service and a range of social services including youth justice, whānau ora, financial mentoring, bail support, corrections and everything else across the sector.
“The work we’ve done hasn’t been planned, it's evolved through needs that have come up in the community,” says Janine. “When you want to direct whānau to a certain service and you find it’s not there, then we’ve had to create it.”
One of the hardest parts for Janine in the early days was becoming a boss to others - especially when her team members were her elders. “I remember the first time we had staff, I was beside myself,” she laughs. “I didn’t know how to tell the old ladies that they needed to do some work, because they were getting paid for it! I had to get some mentoring from friends.”
But as the Trust has extended, so have the skills and expertise of its founders. “Both Martin and I have learned as the organisation has grown, and since then we’ve done more formal education too. Martin has got his masters and he’s now doing his doctorate, and I have a postgraduate degree in not-for-profit business. But most of what we’ve done is self taught.”
And while this type of work is naturally tough at times, making a tangible difference has been the big reward.
“What I love is that we can help families get unstuck. You just want to keep moving people forward.
Families could be going along smoothly and then they hit a rock and suddenly they’re hanging on by a thread or they’re falling apart,” says Janine. Though she is also philosophical when she can’t have the impact that she might want…
“Sometimes you can put a lot of time in with a family and then they go and do something completely different,” says Janine. “So you can’t be too invested for yourself. Some staff can be quite devastated by that, but you have to realise it was never about you. You learn to harden up through the years but you don’t want to become so hard that you’ve got no empathy. You just need to be hard enough so that you don’t fall apart.”
On that matter, Janine has her own strategy for staying strong: “I’ve got a really good family, my kids are all in [the Trust] too so we talk among ourselves and we peer supervise ourselves. We’ve learnt resilience and it’s been built by our life’s journey.
“It’s also about having good mentors around to help you unpack things, and make sure that you can still give the same energy to the next family.”
For this, Janine looks to a group of other wahine toa who work in the sector. “These women always think about the greater good and they’re always serving others, so I find that inspiring,” she says. “They make things happen for people. I’ve been able to observe them and it rubs off. You are who you spend time with.”
Janine with her Trust co-workers and whānau (from left to right) Kira Kemp, Brooklyn Kaipo and Trezahn Kaipo
But when she just needs a break from it all, she has strategies for that too. “I’m a big reader so books are my escape,” she says. “And I’ve discovered TikTok. I can watch that for half an hour and it takes me somewhere else.”
Alongside these daily techniques, Janine takes strength by keeping her sights on the bigger picture too.
“I believe it’s all about our collective consciousness, and thinking about everything as ‘we’ not ‘I’. I saw a quote recently that said: Illness becomes wellness if you add ‘we’.”
You learn to harden up
through the years but
you don't want to
become so hard that
you’ve got no empathy.
You just need to be hard
enough so that you don't
fall apart.
Te Hau Āwhiowhio ō Otangarei Trust lease their cars from Honda and Janine says, “Honda has been great at finding out what we do, where our touchpoints are and coming up with the right solution for us. We’ve got a really nice fleet which the whole neighbourhood knows. I also like how they’re safe on the road - for our staff it’s always about safety first.”
See more about the Trust and its work at otangarei.org.
