Stories of hope and inspiration

It’s been a wonderful experience for me/us as a researcher to be able to meet with our amazing participants and gift back their pūrakau story of transformation. From meeting with Mike C and his son on the beach in Northland, down through the motu to Auckland with Jessica Apanui, Andre Matthews, Mark Cowan, and Joe Moana and then on down to meet again with others in the far reaches of the South Island. Some of our participants have chosen to remain anonymous, for their own very good reasons, but regardless of who they are and where they are, they have shown incredible courage to be part of this much needed research, coming forward to share their stories of hope and inspiration to others. Individually they lead by example in their life of recovery, and collectively they send a powerful message that change is possible and people in recovery can be ‘better than well’.