Realisation

I arrived around the same time as the Eat My Lunch delivery arrived. This was a local social enterprise which had been set up and the concept was that if you bought a lunch, the company would provide a lunch to a student in need. The company had delivered some school lunches to be distributed to the students. From one of the other network attendees I learnt that the school also provided breakfast for the kids as well as lunch. The lady said that she helped with the breakfast serving at least once a week. She admitted to initially being against the idea, that she had believed that children’s nutrition was supposed to be under the remit of their parents. Over time she came to the realisation that due to personal circumstances this was not always possible, and that providing children with one or two meals a day really enhanced their health, and their learning ability. Since then she happily reported to duty each week, and sometimes even filled in shifts for other people.

Disconnection

A family had come back recently from the Islands, the husband was unwell with metastatic cancer. The teacher asked if the patient was under hospice. I thought that service was only for Palagi – The foreigner – the white people. Despite us having been the hospice for the local area for the past 35+ years local people still did not know that we were available to help our local community members regardless of who they are. A gap that we still haven’t been able to bridge despite many years of trying to connect. What we had done over the past three decades just wasn’t working. We need to try something different. The same old, same old just doesn’t cut it any more. What else can we do to make the connection? That we are here for people just like you. We have been trying to recruit to reflect our local demographic. For our staff to look like our community, and we are hiring for inclusion to encourage diversity of thought at all levels of our organisation. People like us look after people like you, we are one and the same.

Traumatisation

The family had lost their father and husband due to a brutal act of violence at the local train station. His life was cruelly stolen from them, and the grief was too much for them to handle. They were lost, set adrift in a cruel sea of grief, with no land in sight, no hope of rescue. Every week they would visit the site of his death, the mother and the children, would weep and could not move on with their lives. This important local community hub held onto their agony with an iron grip. A local amenity that could not be avoided, became not just a place to catch a bus or a train, but a deva-station. Transporting them to a painful past, a tormented present and an uncertain future.