People come together to support and strengthen each other during tragedy, grief and disaster, as well as sharing their lives through times of happiness and celebration. I’ve often found myself meeting many during their darkest times as well as their highest moments and always have been immensely inspired by those who have turned tragedy into hope.

Seeing others rise up to overcome life’s obstacles has instilled in me a fierce determination to do the same, to pay it forward, and to live life generatively.

One day, on hearing that a man’s body had been found weeks after he’d died in a council block of flats near to the Wellington Hospital medical laboratory where I worked, I determined I never wanted to hear that story again in New Zealand. So what did I personally need to do to help ensure that terrible incident was never repeated? Leaving behind my work in immunohaematology and medical microbiology I embarked on a less lucrative direction connecting with people rather than test tubes and microscopes, and endeavouring to help them find help amongst the health and social services available. The sense of fuifilment and 'finding one's purpose' through linking people with each other, resources and information is something that propels me every day.

This led on to helping coordinate a community response from within Tauranga called Rise Up Tauranga, assisting Cantabrians relocating into the Bay of Plenty following the February 2011 earthquake. Hundreds of people became involved and I was again inspired so much by so many who simply said “I’m just doing my bit”.  This effort by our community won a Trustpower community award in 2011. This same growing group of people then refocused their attention on helping with the beach clean-ups following the Rena grounding.

Over the last decade, we continued on utilising social media to work away at building social cohesion across the city. The ‘Hello’ campaign and ‘Happy Tauranga’ were part of that. A healthy community is a connected community.

Gradually over time, I understood that for me, part of ‘doing my bit’ was telling the stories of these people, which led on to the last five years working as a journalist for Sun Media, writing for The Weekend Sun and SunLive. The Weekend Sun won third place for Best Community Involvement in the 2020 NZ Community Newspaper Awards.  I prefer the term storyteller to journalist. When I find myself being handed someone’s personal story which is essentially their treasure I carefully hold that, knowing they have entrusted their story to me to retell. Often I am taken into their world and find myself doing many things I never thought I'd have on a bucket list... like tandem paragliding!

In 2016 when Film Bay of Plenty launched with Anton Steel at its helm I dived in to help in whatever way I could, helping as a locations scout and manager, with the most recent being 'Frankie Jean and the Morning Star', and the pilot of 'Chloe and the...' while also working on screenplays. On realising this was a community of storytellers, I wanted to learn whatever I could about film, recognising that this art form is another unique way to tell people’s stories and help offer hope during the worst of times.

Listening, gathering and sharing stories of how people make a difference by simply ‘doing their bit’ is what can transform our society and help people rise up above formidable odds.

I'm currently working on a documentary about the Rena disaster titled 'The Rena, the reef and the residents', writing a comedy drama series and onto my 8th draft of a feature film telling the fictional story of a family caught up in the Rena disaster.