KEY POINTS:
Raewyn Clark has learned that it takes patience and hard work to make changes.
It took her 22 years to get a memorial garden planted for the cabin crew killed in the Erebus air disaster.
Mrs Clark, 61, has been made of member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the community.
She has been at the forefront of victim support since before it existed as a national organisation.
Her work started in 1979 after an Air New Zealand DC-10 ploughed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica, killing all 257 people aboard.
Mrs Clark's husband, Grahame, was a flight attendant who knew some of the cabin crew who died.
They set about supporting the next of kin and flight attendants, many of whom were expected to carry on work as usual.
Mrs Clark said she talked Air New Zealand's management out of cancelling the staff Christmas party that year, saying it was an important part of the flight attendants' grieving process.
It then took 22 years to get a garden planted near Auckland Airport in memory of the 17 cabin crew.
She also arranged for melted ice from Mt Erebus to be poured over the garden, which is visited by family and colleagues on the anniversary of the disaster.
In the late 1980s, Mrs Clark became concerned about the lack of support for victims of crime and, by 1991, began work in the field at the Papakura police station.
Although dreading approaching next of kin after murders or accidents, she knew it was important they be offered support as soon as possible.
She also became the first advocate to be allowed to speak in the Youth Court on behalf of burglary victims.
For years, she had been a voluntary social worker and her other community work included helping the Manurewa Citizens Advice Bureau, civil defence, the South Auckland Hospice and the Otahuhu Lioness Club.
Mrs Clark was also the chairwoman of the first board of trustees at Aorere College in Papatoetoe, where setting up the school charter proved a "diabolical" task.
When reflecting on what drove her, Mrs Clark refers to an operation she had when she was 11, in which surgeon Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes repaired a hole in her heart.
It gave her an early respect for life and a heightened focus. "I think my viewpoint was different from others."
