Remembering Nanny Ngai, the safe house kuia
When Ngaire Kelly made her final journey to the Hamilton safe house enclave run by Te Whakaruruhau Waikato Women’s Refuge, the long driveway was lined with black-clad women. Their waiata echoed in the stillness as the van carrying her casket inched slowly forward, and the keening women grieved for the loss of their beloved Nanny Ngai.
Nanny Ngai was the safe house kuia, and she had an intuitive grasp on caring for the abused women and their children who come through its doors.
She had left the enclave just a few days earlier, looking forward to a weekend in Wellington with Te Whakaruruhau colleagues at a 50th anniversary national hui for Māori women’s refuges.
She died suddenly at the hui on March 27, and her loss is deeply felt by her family and by the Te Whakaruruhau community, where she was a taonga.
Ngaire Kelly, 78, had spent decades working with vulnerable women. Scooping them out of violent homes, holding them as they wept, soothing their wounds, cuddling their kids (sometimes giving them a growling), hearing their stories, learning their needs, talking to them about what their future might look like. I had the pleasure of meeting her during research for a book, Stand By Me, co-authored with my friend and journalist colleague, Venetia Sherson.
The book was commissioned and published by Te Whakaruruhau in 2018 to mark the refuge’s 30th anniversary.
Nanny Ngai was one of our key interviews, a woman once met and never forgotten. This column is not written to be her obituary; it is more to remember her wisdom and her kindness in the complex world of abused women. Which was her life’s work.
Ngaire had a deep, throaty laugh, a rich vein of humour, and a friendly word for everyone who crossed her path. She said people began calling her Nanny Ngai before she actually became a grandmother. She was of Waikato-tainui descent, she grew up in Whatawhata village, west of Hamilton.
She said that her mother, Margaret, had taught her that there was always goodness in people, no matter what, and that no one had the right to judge another person.
Ngaire and her late husband Roy, who she described as her rock, raised their four children in Tokoroa.
They were hugely proud of them, and their 10 mokopuna and six greatmokopuna.
Ngaire was a foundation member of Tokoroa Women’s Refuge in 1985 and switched to the staff of Te Whakaruruhau in Hamilton five years later. It was a better fit for her, she said, because it embraced Māori whānau values of non-judgemental care and nurturing.
The Te Whakaruruhau approach is entirely non-directive, it offers wraparound support, flexible for each family, and is led by the women themselves.
This, Ngaire believed, was the key to the work: it was about building a village in a refuge, creating a circle of safety and care for beaten women as they recovered, set their goals and make plans. Told staff what they wanted. Rather than staff telling them what they needed.
For more than 30 years, Ngaire had commuted between her home in Tokoroa and Hamilton, staying a few nights each week with Te Whakaruruhau founders Roni Albert and Ariana Simpson, who remain at the helm of the refuge today. Roni and Ariana were with Ngaire in Wellington when she died, and they accompanied her home to the Waikato.
Ariana says Ngaire followed the kaupapa of legendary Waikato Māori leader Te Puea Hērangi on the nurturing and healing power of a village, of acting collectively rather than individually: “She was the kuia of the whāre, she was insightful, the women trusted her, and she would sit and chat to every single child in the complex.
“She could gauge when a woman was ready to leave for the next part of her recovery, and when children were getting back to communicating more fully. She kept the village tikanga; it is our way of looking after our people.
“She was the keeper of the mauri
(life force), the lantern at the end of the tunnel.”
Roni Albert says Nanny Ngai will be so much missed. “She was our backstop with a wealth of experience with Māoritanga. She had softness and compassion and love for the women and staff, and she had huge patience and endurance.”
Nanny Ngai’s story in the Te Whakaruruhau book was appropriately headlined It Takes A Village, and in it she described the refuge kaupapa as awhi (love), manaaki (to surround and nurture) and tiaki (to take care of), and she outlined the simple house values of respect, truth and honour.
If you broke the rules, she said, you were likely to get a growling from one of the house mums, just as you would at home. But you would not be judged for your behaviour. She said if you were having a hard day, there would be someone to talk to, to help lift you up. If you were doing good things you would get compliments, it would be celebrated.
This, Nanny Ngai said, was how you built a village in a safe house. You made it into a family home. Staff members treated the women and children as they would treat their own family.
“We say to the women, this is about you. What is it you need from us? All it takes is to listen and hear the story.
This is more important than ticking a set of questions about low risk and high risk. You get gaps because you didn’t let her tell her story. The safer they feel, the more of the story you hear.
“What keeps me going is seeing a woman come through, do well, and you know where she’s come from, you know the journey. That’s such a reward. You could see that intelligent little light in the beginning.”
Ngaire Kelly’s journey from Wellington ended at Te Papa o Rotu marae, in Whatawhata, for her tangihanga. Among the hundreds of people who gathered were two young mothers, with seven children between them, who had stayed at the refuge.
One of them told Ngaire’s daughter, Piki Ngatai, that Nanny Ngai had loved her at a time when no-one else had, and that had meant the world to her. The young woman’s progress would have meant the world to Nanny Ngai.
Denise Irvine is a Hamilton freelance journalist and food writer, and a regular Waikato Times contributor.