Sonia Wilson
Victim Support volunteer
Sonia Wilson was driving home from work 27 years ago when she came across a car crash. It was late and dark but she could see two cars with extensive damage. She stopped.
A woman was seriously injured and stuck in her car. Wilson sat with her until emergency services arrived and kept talking to her as firefighters cut the woman out of her trap.
She was by her side for a few minutes, but it seemed like an eternity.
‘‘To this day, I remember everything about her,’’ Wilson says.
The woman died shortly afterwards and her husband asked to meet Wilson.
‘‘I was really humbled because he was so grateful to me for having stayed with her.’’
Wilson was then aged 25, the mother of two young children, a full-time health co-ordinator at Rotorua’s health camp and about to start night study to become a nurse. But she still found the time to join Victim Support.
Now aged 52 and Oranga Tamariki’s Rotorua youth justice manager, she is Victim Support’s longest-serving volunteer.
Wilson has come a long way from her first job as a kitchen hand at the health camp at age 16.
She had dropped out of high school after finding out she was pregnant, and moved in with her then partner.
‘‘It was still very shameful at that time. A lot of people would tell me that I had wasted my life. But I knew there were two ways you could go in life: up or down. I had dreams and I knew it would take me longer to achieve them, but I was determined.’’
The young mother went to night school to get her University Entrance, then studied social sciences, nursing, social work and counselling, while raising four children and climbing the ranks at the health camp until she became the manager in 2000.
At the camp, she worked with children battling health issues, including asthma, obesity, wetting and soiling, behavioural issues or trauma.
Wilson credits her determination, a strong desire to help others and supportive employers and family members for her many achievements.
In 2004 she was recognised by the New Zealand Police with a Commissioner’s Commendation for supporting 23 victims in the Pourshad Arvand case.
Arvand was one of the first New Zealanders found guilty of spiking women’s drinks to steal their money and, in some cases, rape them.
He had targeted Asian tourists and exchange students, whom he thought were less likely to complain to police.
Wilson supported the women over a year through the court process. Many of them had not told anyone and were afraid their families back home would find out.
In her years as a Victim Support volunteer, she has helped people bereaved by suicide, sudden death and homicide, sexual assault victims, and children who have experienced trauma and accidents. She has attended helicopter, plane and car crashes.
She would have many stories to tell but is reluctant to go into details out of respect for the victims.
Over the years, she has accompanied police about 40 times as they knocked on people’s doors to inform them a loved one had died. ‘‘I know as we are walking up the driveway that their lives are about to change forever.’’
Wilson says doing this is difficult but it is nothing compared to the devastation people experience. ‘‘It’s a terrible tragedy but it’s their tragedy and I am there to support them. I am not going to be any good to them if I am upset.’’
Everybody will respond differently and have different needs – some need to be taken to a couch to sit down, others need help calling family members.
‘‘It’s just being present, empathetic and do whatever they need me to do.’’
She remembers every single person she has helped, and they remember her too.
Wilson often gets hugged out of the blue when she bumps into someone she has helped, even if it was years ago.
She and her family have been on the other side of a tragic door-knock, too. One of Wilson’s four children, Whittney Robertson, was killed by a repeat drink-driver in a car crash in 2009.
‘‘At first it was like white noise. A dreadful shock and hard to take it all in.’’
Everyone in the family reacted differently, she says.
As for Wilson, after her initial anger at learning the driver had not been allowed to drive at the time because of four previous drink-driving convictions, she was able to forgive.
‘‘Nothing was going to change the outcome. I wanted him to get the help he needed to address whatever was going on and make sure it did not happen again.’’
Getting out of bed was a struggle some days, but ‘‘I had three surviving children and I didn’t want to waste all my energy becoming bitter and upset and have them feel like they weren’t important because I was consumed by her death.’’
The loss made Wilson reconsider her priorities and that year she went back to frontline work helping children and their families.
She joined Oranga Tamariki as a social worker and, after a short break, was back volunteering with a deeper understanding of what it felt like to lose a loved one. ‘‘It wasn’t hard afterwards because I seemed to be able to separate my tragedy from their tragedy. I’m going there to support them.’’
In her work at Oranga Tamariki and as a volunteer, Wilson has seen the devastating effects family harm, drug and alcohol issues and trauma can have on the community. But rather than dwelling on the negatives, she focuses on what can be done to help.
‘‘No one agency or person can address these issues alone. It’s going to need a whole community to make a difference, particularly in the lives of young people.’’
At Youth Justice, staff look for underlying issues behind offending behaviours to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
She recalls a couple of young people who had come in for theft. They had had a transient lifestyle involving drugs, alcohol and trauma. They received counselling support and did community work for their offending in a local organisation they had expressed an interest in.
‘‘Initially, they wanted to get their hours done but then they loved it and you could see the rise in their self-esteem.’’
They are still volunteering there today, long after their time was done. "They saw people believed in them and saw they didn’t have to continue with crime – and they didn’t.’’
Wilson is pleased to see youth offending crime rates have dropped over the past few years but she is worried about disproportionate Ma¯ ori offending rates.
Listening to iwi and other partners, looking at things from a Ma¯ ori world view is key, she says. ‘‘Let’s be creative because if we continue to do what we have always done we’ll continue to get what we’ve always got.’’
Nominations for the 2018 Women of Influence Awards are open. Nominate an influential woman you know at stuff.co.nz/ womenofinfluence
‘‘It’s just being present, empathetic and do whatever they need me to do.’’