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An inspiring young law student is rising through thick and thin and dedicating her life to healing generations of wounds.
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Journey Porata was treated at the age of eight and reviewed seven houses. Source: 1 NEWS
Journey Porata is being recognized with the Prime Minister’s Oranga Tamariki Award for its ambitions.
She was first brought into the care of the state at the age of eight. Growing up, she was dragged by seven households.
Porata describes her early years as “very traumatic.”
“Drugs, alcohol, violence, they were the vanguard of my life. As a result of that it was sexual abuse, neglect, all those things that you hear,” he told Breakfast de TVNZ1.
“I grew up feeling very embarrassed that people knew that I was in the care of the state, but I hope this encourages people to lose that whakamā [shame] and talk about their stories. “
Porata’s brother was also taken in by the state at a young age. She describes it as full of potential.
“But he was very caught up in his past, where from a young age he was already involved with gangs,” says Porata.
He is currently in prison.
Things changed for Porata in house three, with a British couple.
“[They] they were the most loving people I had come across on my journey out of the system into the system. They really loved and cared for me, which was wonderful for me. “
It is the emotional support that Porata believes is key when it comes to children in state care.
She says she disagrees with many of Oranga Tamariki’s practices when it comes to improvements.
“It is easy to take a child, but when we get to the root, we are talking about generations and generations of trauma and that is where it unfolds,” he says.
“That’s where we have to go, it’s to the root. Removing things from the surface level doesn’t heal everything at the core.”
Now Porata is studying law and attributes her ambitions to an “incredible” lawyer who represented her in the court system during her lifetime.
“I think I have accepted the challenges in my life and used them to guide me,” he says.
“I believe that regardless of whether I am a lawyer or not, I was born to make a difference.”
