Te Kāhu Tiu director Amelia Trotter. Photo / David Haxton
Te Kāhu Tiu director Amelia Trotter. Photo / David Haxton
Deep in the hills of rural Reikorangi, on the outskirts of Waikanae, a special building is being created to support a transformative approach aimed at diverting young men from jail.
The multi-faceted programme at Te Kāhu Tiu will give troubled youth, who are going through the court system because of their offending, a real opportunity to change for the better.
Te Kāhu Tiu has been the dream of Amelia Trotter for more than three decades.
Trotter studied psychology and criminology at Victoria University, and when she did her Master’s in criminal justice, she worked with a lot of young offenders.
She noticed these young offenders had all suffered some form of trauma in their lives, and a lot of them had no chance to turn their lives around.
That’s when she decided she wanted to start up a youth justice centre.
Te Kāhu Tiu under construction. Photo / David Haxton
“During my five years at Victoria University, I started getting this vision of a land-based rehab programme.”
Trotter’s first initiative was her involvement in starting Mission for Youth, which developed the Educational Day Programme in Newtown – an alternative school for troubled youths.
“It had about 15 teenagers that were getting kicked out of school [and] had all sorts of behavioural, offending, drug or other types of issues.”
It was after that school closed, though, that she and her husband bought a 14-hectare plot of land on Ngatiawa Rd, Reikorangi, with plans to develop a youth justice centre.
She said when she and her husband visited the site for the first time seven years ago, a flock of hawks flew over the land, and it was as if they were “guardians of the land”.
So, Trotter consulted with someone from the Te Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai marae, in Waikanae, who translated “the soaring hawk” into Māori, and that’s where she got the name Te Kāhu Tiu.
Amelia Trotter in front of Te Kāhu Tiu. Photo / David Haxton
“It’s kind of about giving the rangitahi wings so they can fly.”
Trotter also retrained to be a trauma therapist, a qualification she wanted to bring into the youth justice programme.
There were a couple of hurdles Trotter and her husband had to get over before they could start building the facility, including gaining resource consent and funding capital expenditure.
In the end, they got the resource consent, but Trotter said, “No one wants to fund capital expenditure for something that doesn’t yet exist”, so she and her husband financed the whole build.
It was tough during Covid though, and everything ended up costing a lot more than they had originally anticipated.
But despite all that, the exterior of the building is essentially complete, and work on the interior is taking place.
It will consist of a music studio, a commercial kitchen, an indoor/outdoor dining area, a multi-purpose area for personal projects, a consultation room and a big room for lots of different activities.
There’s also been huge planting efforts, and a $7000 donation from the Nikau Foundation also meant a produce garden could be built.
One of the main areas inside Te Kāhu Tiu. Photo / David Haxton
Trotter is hoping the work will be done in the next couple of months, and that the facility will be up and running within the next 12 months.
The facility will be designed for male youths, as Trotter said most of the country’s youth crime is committed by boys.
Once those young boys’ offending is bad enough, the Youth Court will give them the option to attend the youth justice centre, rather than being incarcerated.
“They try to keep kids out of the youth justice system. They try and minimise the time they’re in there.”
The facility will work much like a school, with students working towards NZQA unit standards, but will also focus on rehabilitation.
Trotter said most young offenders will need between 12 and 24 months to make sustainable changes, and they will work towards those changes by doing a variety of different activities each day.
She said the garden will be a big aspect, with the youths learning about farming, specifically how to grow their own food and how to prepare it.
“Our garden is organic, biodynamic, permaculture and regenerative.”
A produce garden under way at Te Kāhu Tiu. Photo / David Haxton
They will also be learning how to look after the property, and how to nurture themselves with “good, real food”.
Life coaching will also be a big aspect, where the young boys will create a vision for what they want to do when they leave the facility, and they will receive help on how to achieve it, whether that be through help getting their driver’s licence, an apprenticeship or something else.
Another big aspect will be therapy, both group therapy and individual therapy, which will be done by Trotter.
Trotter said there will be several different staff members, including social workers, youth workers, and someone to run the programme who has experience in the system.
They will work with one staff member for every one or two students, as they will be high-needs.
And to make the facility as accessible to everyone as possible, Trotter said they will go around the Greater Wellington region and pick up the youths each morning.
She’s really looking forward to what’s coming next, and said it’s such an immersive and beautiful place, and she can’t wait to share it with others.
