Kiwibank Local Heroes Medal Recipients for

Manukau

 

 

 

Agnes Koti of Manurewa

Agnes Koti’s service to her community is driven from her pashion for the youth and the families of Manurewa. Agnes is not ready to accept the negative stereotypes often handed out to people in this area and she does all she can to help reverse this perception.

She has had an intregal role with Manurewa Marlins Rugby League for over 10 years as a volunteer, coach, manager and even player. Her tireless work has been credited to the growth the club has had with their junior schoolboy programme as the Marlins now have the largest membership in New Zealand.  From coaching and playing rugby league to organising and running events, Aggie as she is affectionately known is described as ‘always being there to help whoever needs it’.

Aiolupotea Roache of Mangere

Aiolupotea has been the cornerstone of Samoan rugby in Auckland for the past two decades. In this time he has taken it upon himself to coordinate the Auckland Samoa Rugby Football Union which he has successfully nurtured and allowed to grow to 24 teams. Due to Aiolupotea success with the Auckland Samoa Rugby Football Union he was asked to help the struggling Otahuhu Rugby Club back to prominence in 2006. Aiolupotea dutifully accepted the challenge and has since reversed the Club’s downward spiral.

Throughout his time involved in these organisations Aiolupotea has dug into his own pocket to fund events and even the organisations themselves and volunteered hundreds of hours of his own time.
Congratulations Aiolupotea.

Angela Opai of Manurewa

Angela is Leabank Primary School’s-Social Worker and Chairperson for “POSM Trust”-Parents of Schools in Manurewa, which is a trust she set up to help parents of primary school children in Manurewa.

She motivates parents into courses on hygiene, cooking, budgeting, gardening, basic numeracy and literacy and recently a -“Early years” (14 week parenting course) and basic law.

Through her work and dedication Angela is determined to make not only Manurewa parents better themselves, but her dream is to reach all Schools in South Auckland and make a difference for families in the whole of New Zealand.

Inderjeet Bajwa

Inderjeet Bajwa, more known as Indu Bajwa migrated to New Zealand in 2003.

Despite being new to the country, she would still help new imigrants, who could not speak English, to find jobs, write CV’s and even offer meals to those in need.
In 2004 Indu became a volunteer ESOL (English as a Second Language) tutor and has also taught community programmes run at the Manurewa Sikh temple, the Otahuhu Sikh temple and guru Teg Bhadur Sikh temple ,Papatoetoe.

Now a fully paid ESOL teacher for ESOL Home Tutors she was their educator of the Year in 2007. Indu has also spent the past four years as a St John’s caring caller, held informational meetings on cervical cancer for Indian women and has recently established the ‘Hope n Help’ trust.

Dr Jack Fraser of Pakuranga

For the past 54 years Dr Jack Fraser has devoted his life to the medical fraternity, his community and most importantly, people. In 1964 Jack established the first medical practice in Pakuranga which he operated until 2005. His dedication to his commmunity saw him on call 24/7 to help the sick in his community.

Over this period Dr Fraser was responsible for delivering up to four generations in the same families. In conjunction with his practice Dr Fraser was one of the founding memebers of Eastcare A & E, a founding member of the Auckland Chinese Medical association and tutored medical students from the University of Auckland in Obstetrics. Dr Fraser is also a member of the Pakuranga Church and spent time as a Sunday School Teacher.

Joe Iosefo of East Tamaki

Joe Iosefo does a huge amount of work to make a difference to the community of Otara. Joe is a proponent of healthy eating and has developed veggie gardens for all of the Pearl Baker Drive (where he lives) families.

He regularly tends to each individual garden and harvests the fruits and vegetables which he then distributes to the families on the street. For his effort Joe was named Auckland Gardener of the Year for 2010.

Joe works voluntarily at the Growing For Health teaching garden at East Tamaki Bowling Club where he works with teens to hone their gardening skills and keep them off the streets. Joe also leads graffiti removal programmes, rubbish collection and heads the neighbourhood watch group.

He well known all over his community and always welcomes new families into the local area and lets them know he is there if they need help with anything.

Katherine Wong of Mangere


Hospitality tutor Katherine Wong immigrated to New Zealand 35 years ago has taken it upon herself to mentor and provide opportunities for the lower socio-economic groups in New Zealand.

 She has worked in several lower decile schools and at Southern Cross Campus and worked with many disadvantaged youth. Katherine has produced amazing results with many of her students winning prestigious awards in culinary competitions such as gold,silver and bronze medals in Open New Zealand competitions.This has seen many of her students go on to succesful careers that would have never been available if not for Katherine.

Stephen Boxer of Papatoetoe

Since 2001, Steve has helped over 600 ‘in-risk’ teens to turn their lives around. Born and bred in Mangere, South Auckland, Steve became disheartened at negative stereotyping which depicted the area as a sort of “no hope zone”. This motivated him from a young age to give something back to the community that he grew up in. Steve has focussed this drive into making a difference for some of the region’s most difficult teens: its youth offenders.

Following a career in the armed forces and the local Manukau community, in 2001, Steve developed and founded the MYND (Male Youth New Direction, now called Mentoring Youth New Direction) programme. MYND caters for young people aged 14-17 years, who have come to the attention of CYFs or the Police for offending and antisocial behaviour, it is their last chance before heading to jail. Steve now works with over 100 young people every year, helping them to turn their lives around and make a positive contribution to society through major reduction in crime statistics.

Warner Wilder

Warner Wilder is the College Chaplin at Kings College. He is affectionately known to students as ‘Rev’ and he has been creating engagement programmes for his community for over 15 years.

With the help of many Kings Colleges students he has assisted hundreds if not thousands of people with a range of activities such as reading and writing programmes for children, visiting intellectually disabled people and providing companionship at the South Auckland Women’s Refuge centre among others.

Outside of creating community initiatives Warner has travelled to Sri Lanka to help rebuild after the Boxing Day tsunami of 2005 and to Zambia with Child Fund New Zealand. 2010 was an horrific year for Kings College with 3 students passing away unexpectedly and Warner’s citation recognised his dedication and selfless work to support the students during this difficult time.