On Saturday I attended a viewing of the film Tina. I cried my heart out many times. Basically, it’s a story about a Pacific Island gifted teacher being employed by a flash school. An important message of the film is that people operating within the straitjacket of conformity have many lessons to learn from the other side of town, which they view as a lesser suburb than their lofty and comfortable places of residence.
The film starts with our earthquakes of February 2011. As the rumbling and the falling buildings appeared on the screen, I closed my eyes, and my gut twisted in a knot. Our experience of the day and the subsequent years that followed are etched deep into our psyche. The woman sitting in the seat behind me was on the top floor of the CTV building and survived. The car we had sold her was crushed with over a hundred people.
At a school which prided itself on promoting conventional sports like rugby, having a brilliant Pacific Island teacher demonstrating that it takes equal discipline to be a functioning member of a choir was an exciting element throughout the film.
Tina returned home each night to her humble flat in Aranui. There she was challenged by her friends and family and asked why she was not working within her own community. This dilemma is faced everyday by those working to achieve equity in our society. Tina needed work and the rich school could pay her. The question of her raising the game in her own community was a fair one but the rich cultural theme which she infused into the school on the other side of town was maybe even more powerful.
The challenge for our city is for as many of us as possible to watch the film and to be reminded of our challenge to act individually as bridge builders between different sections of our society which need all of us to promote a collaborative and cohesive society.
Grassroots initiatives, whether they’re about running, conservation, or rebuilding a town’s identity, have the power to create lasting change. Ben Kepes
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