Living in Aotearoa not so bad

WIDER HORIZONS: Ezekiel Raui, who sees the world a little differently after his White House experience.

Ezekiel (Zeek) Raui is no ordinary 18-year-old.

The head boy at Taipa Area School, who has his long-term sights set on a political career, has a much greater understanding of issues facing his community, and Maori youth in particular, than many, but he's just come home from a conference in Washington DC that has changed his outlook.

Zeek was one of four young Maori leaders who took part in the first White House United National Indian Tribal Youth (UNITY) conference, organised under the auspices of the Generation Indigenous (Gen-I) initiative established by President Barack Obama last year to focus on improving the lives of young native Americans.

And while the experience further fuelled Zeek's ambitions to find answers to problems, it brought many issues in this country into a new perspective.

"I enjoyed seeing new ways of keeping youth motivated to address issues and problems; there is more than one way to achieve an outcome," he said last week.

"There are a lot of issues for my generation in the United States. I didn't really understand how well off Maori youth, youth in general, are in this country. I now see the world through different eyes."

He had gone to Washington believing that New Zealand faced many problems, and to seek ways in which people could help each other, but returned believing that New Zealanders had it better than many others around the world.

Native Americans believed that in some parts of the States 'the system' - health, education, government in general - did not support them, he said. In some states native American heritage was something to be hidden.

Maori culture, on the other hand, was in good shape.

"People all over the world are learning te reo, and learning to understand our culture, and that has to be good for our country," he added.

"If we knuckle down, and everything is structured right, then I think New Zealand will be fine."

He had been overseas a number of times, and it was always good to return, especially to the Far North. For all that he enjoyed the ability to share opportunities and knowledge, something that he intended to continue doing.

In terms of his future, he had been tossing up between law and business, but was now leaning towards working with students "somewhere in education." Politics was the end game though, all the way to perhaps one day being Prime Minister.

Meanwhile he hadn't seen himself on TV One's Seven Sharp last week. For all that he has achieved and experienced, he cannot bring himself to watch or listen to his interviews, a reluctance that he might well have to learn to overcome before too much longer.

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The opportunity for Maori to be represented at the UNITY conference was seized by Kaitaia GP Dr Lance O'Sullivan when he attended this year's Tribal Self-Governance Consultation Conference in Reno, Nevada, as part of a Callaghan Innovation health IT delegation.

There he met Kevin Washburn, Secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who was "enthusiastically supportive" of hosting a Maori delegation, which along with Zeek comprised Tayla-Rose Campbell (Hato Petera), Conor O'Sullivan (studying medicine in Auckland) and Moerangi Vercoe (Rotorua), chaperoned by Cale Silich, from the MOKO team in Kaitaia.