Leading from the front issuu

PAT MAGILL —
HE WHAKATAUKI
In the context of healing future generations this Whakatauki reminds me of Pat:
Hapaitia Te ara tika pumau ai te Rangatiratanga mo nga uri Whakatipu —
Foster the pathway of knowledge to strength, independence
and growth for future generations.
My name is Lois Naera and I met Pat around 2012. I was
working for Pillars Incorporated at the time, an organisation
that has worked for over 30 years with children and
whānau of prisoners.
I’ve been a social worker for almost 40 years now and
I use that knowledge to lecture at the Manukau Institute
of Technology, shaping our future social work practitioners
— a job I love, next to working with whānau.
In 2012 I received an email from our Pillars Christchurch
office to say that there was a group of people coming
to Auckland with some children to a whānau day
at the Wiri Women’s Prison. I didn’t know whether the
email was meant for me and sent it back to Christchurch
as it didn’t say a lot aside of the fact they were needing
somewhere to stay in Auckland and did Pillars provide
accommodation.
The email went to and fro and eventually I figured I
would call the person who had sent the email, Berta
Ratima. Berta was bringing a small group of children to
Auckland to visit their mothers in prison. Although Pillars
doesn’t provide accommodation for children or whānau
visiting their parent’s in prison, I felt empathetic for their
cause and decided to find accommodation for these
people outside my work for Pillars.
My mokopuna attended a local kohanga reo at the
time and I made enquiries as to whether we could use
their small facility to host the visitors from Maraenui. Tahuri
mai kohanga at the time had a small prefab building
with a small kitchen but enough space to place mattresses
down to sleep. No showering facilities but the
local swimming pool was straight across the road which
could be utilised for showering the children and whānau.
My husband and I decided that we would host them
over the weekend. When they arrived on Friday night
we settled them in and left them to their own devices as
we lived very close and would check in with them in the
morning. The group had already set an agenda for the
weekend so we just spent the evenings with them.
This was our first encounter of meeting Mr Pat Magill.
It was a strange sight at the time because here was
this Pākeha kaumātua with a group of Māori and I was
curious to know his connection to them. We spent the
evenings of their visit getting to know the whānau and
Pat’s connection. This was the beginning of a journey
of friendship that would go further than we both anticipated.
I soon found out that Pat was passionate about the Te
Araroa Trail and how this could be a healing journey for
all; more importantly those affected by incarceration or
injustices. Pat was an avid social justice man, something
also close to my heart.
With a group of people from Maraenui, Pat was planning
to walk the first journey of the Te Araroa Trail from
Te Rerenga Wairua to Ahipara. I told Pat that the iwi in
the far north were my whānau and Pat said he would
like a kaumātua to do their karakia for them before they
began their journey. I then connected Pat to my father
Image above: Pat visits Lois Naera and the team for the official opening of the Pillars Manukau office, speaks with Pillars volunteers,
and participates in the annual ‘Children of Prisoners’ event.
Napier Pilot City Trust – for a kinder, fairer city 139