Helping create stability with resources
Identity creates stability. Kiri-michelle Mohi has drawn on her whakapapa, her wha¯nau, her experience and her creativity to produce a resource she hopes will help youngsters find their foundation and give them that stability.
Paengaroa resident Kirimichelle launches her book, My Colour is Enough, next week at The Daily Cafe. She says it is the first in a series.
“I’ve been a social worker for close to 20 years and have a bachelor’s degree in social work and a postgraduate diploma in clinical supervision and I’ve done a lot of the mahi now for 10 years in schools,” she says.
“I’ve been wanting to write resources for our other social workers in schools because sometimes you are just thrown into it and you have to go and source resources.”
She says when she first started working with students she had a lot to learn.
“I didn’t realise intermediateage kids did things like selfharm. They’re starting to come into their own at intermediate age and there’s all these different things going on for kids. I had to go and find the resources and understanding around a lot of it.
“I was looking for resources all the time and I thought wouldn’t it be cool if I could just create my own resources that were colour-coded so any social worker could come in and go, ‘I’ve got this dilemma going on I’ll pull this book out and I’ll work with this child and we’ll have a conversation around this book, this issue.”’
The books will cover a range of issues. The first is identity, something that came up regularly with the children she worked with.
“This book is a little bit more personal. This book has my four grandsons in it, it also has myself, it has my daughter.
“My dad’s mum was a Pa¯keha¯ woman and she was whangied, adopted, into a Ma¯ori family and raised as a Ma¯ ori, so she’s in it — so this book is basically about colour identity, the external versus the internal.
“You are who you, inside believe you are. It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside and that flows through the whole book. You are any colour you want to be, nobody tells you who you are — your whakapapa tells you who you are.”
She says identity is about creating a foundation.
“If you can connect to something strong that you believe in and you have faith in, it gives you grounding and gives you pride. If you have something you so strongly connect to, you are 100 times more wary of letting that down.
“People who have nothing and are just out there and don’t have that grounding and that connection, they are the ones more likely to stray.”
Kiri-michelle has already completed the second book, on adversity. It will be released next year, with others covering areas such as grief and loss.
“They will all be very straight to the point. Each page rhymes with bright, appealing colours. The books are designed to accommodate teachers, parents, tamariki, the support workers that come into the school — they are not targeted at one audience, they are across the board.”
Kiri-michelle is also a singer, but has not been active in recent years. After contracting a virus and waking up in ICU in June, she says the neardeath experience gave her a new lease on life.
“But when I came out of that I thought — ‘I’ve been sitting on this stuff for years, I’ve been sitting on my singing . . . but I’ve been given a second chance, it’s time to take hold and do the things I’ve put on hold.”
The book launch will be on December 16, 11am- 12.30pm.
You are any colour you want to be, nobody tells you who you are — your whakapapa tells you who you are.
Kiri-michelle Mohi