Wairiki – Māngere
“My eleven year old self – don’t get into crimes, don’t start fights, focus on your education, don’t be a sheep, don’t follow all your other bros that are going down a different track just follow your heart and do what you wanna do not what they wanna do. My background is pretty rough, I grew up in the gang life.
I grew up in Māngere born and raised been there for 18 years of my life. Life was hard. I lost my Dad at a young age and all I saw was gang life. It’s like the older parents are like their role models and all they see is gang so they wanna be like them cos they think it’s normal. Gang life is not the only life – there is a better life out there like Army, military and all that kind of shit. I do Advance Training. It’s military prep; training to go into the Army. Yes it’s pretty good – keeps me off the streets.
I’m pretty excited aye [about my future]. Good money, legit money, don’t have to worry about the police coming round.
Healthy relationship is just like respect for each other, love, and like knowing each other, like the limits. In the gangs you don’t really know each other’s limits so you just fight fight fight.”
