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Joe Fraser would steal candy from cupboards as a kid just to eat. He would find cereal on a good day.
Now, seven years after being separated from his mother, he is 17 years old and receives the Prime Minister’s award.
Joe is living proof that state-organized foster care is not a one-way street to a dead end.
She had an unhappy childhood and managed by stealing sweets from the closet and sometimes cereal if she was lucky.
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He came to a head one day after an argument with his mother, and he went to his best friend’s house, where his partner’s grandmother found out what had been going on and called Oranga Tamarki.
CHRIS SKELTON / Things
Joe Fraser, who is receiving the Prime Minister’s award, spent years in foster care. He became a director and went to study music.
Joe was 10 and a half years old. So, by his own admission, he was the most disobedient kid in elementary school.
He moved to a couple of foster homes around Christchurch and then, at age 12, returned to his mother.
For a time things went well. “We were doing activities together. It was fun “.
But after three years, things got worse again and he was back in foster care.
Now living on the other side of Christchurch, and in year 10, he moved to Mairehau High School.
“It was the NCEA next year, I should probably stick my finger out.”
CHRIS SKELTON / Things
Joe Fraser has talked about his tough growth and how it changed his life.
He was in 2020 as principal of Mairehau High and Oranga Tamariki describes him as a high-achieving academic, gifted musically, “and he can play any instrument he grasps.” He currently lives with his godfather in Christchurch.
Margaret Roberston, music director at Mairehau High, one of the two music teachers who traveled to Parliament’s awards ceremony, recalls that Joe came to school in the tenth grade. He remembered a slightly immature teenager, but even then he could see his determination.
By then he was with a good foster family. The change he would see in the coming years was gradual but marked.
When he was locked up, he was so committed to studying online that she had to tell him to get out and get some fresh air.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will present him tonight with the Te Ihumanea award from Oranga Tamariki, an ambitious scholar, at a show in Parliament worth $ 3,000.
