In the lead up to Christmas, RNZ is speaking to people who work to improve the lives of others, asking them what do they really want for Christmas? Not a phone, or a new car - but the things that would make a real difference to the people they support. In our first instalment, Michelle Cooke speaks to Jackie Clark of The Aunties.
Jackie Clark says she wants the women she supports to be safe and well, and for others to be more aware of domestic violence Photo: SUPPLIED
"What I really want is for them to be safe, well and stay alive... I want so much for them and I want so much from everybody else."
When Clark talks about "them" she is speaking of the Aunties whānau - the 27 women her organisation supports. "Everybody else" is the rest of us.
For several years now, Clark - a former kindergarten teacher and domestic violence victim - has been ensuring the group of 27 women have everything they need so they can focus on healing.
These women have been beaten and beaten, battered and bruised throughout their lives. All but one were sexually abused as children; All but one were sexually assaulted as adults; and all but one have been physically assaulted. It's inter-generational, and "whakapapas back to colonisation", Clark says.
"These 27 women are survivors of the most extreme, and when I say extreme I'm talking Once Were Warriors on steroids. Sexual, physical, psychological violence - extreme, the most extreme."
Clark offers intensive emotional support, regularly meeting with the women to discuss how they're going, and sourcing and providing material items - be it a new fridge, washing machine or dining chairs - so they have everything they need to focus on healing.
"If you take all their other worries off their plate - the material worries - then they get a chance to heal properly. That doesn't really happen otherwise," Clark says.
It's been a tough couple of years for many of them: Three had Covid-19 this year, including one mum who isolated at home with her four kids, and another who ended up in hospital.
Jackie Clark with two of the women The Aunties supports - Moeroa, centre, and Lana on the right Photo: SUPPLIED
Through tears, Clark says the worst thing was not being able to see them in person due to restrictions in Auckland. She usually catches up with them once every six weeks, at a nice café, but now restrictions have eased they are coming to her house instead.
It's also been a tough time for The Aunties, with donations down about $50,000, which means no car repairs, no clothes shopping and no new devices.
"I want money," Clark adds.
Donations cover $350 monthly Pak'nSave vouchers for each women, birthday presents for their children, baby items - "whatever they may need to make their lives easier".
They've all just been given an extra $500 ahead of Christmas.
What else does she want?
"What I want from everybody else is to stop denying the DV (domestic violence) is the huge problem it is and stop trying to pretend that it happens somewhere else than in your family," Clark says.
"You know, I want New Zealanders to wake up generally to what DV actually is. And the example I use is, if you're Pākehā, watch uncle Noel and aunty Jean at the Christmas table - watch the way he speaks to her and watch the way she hangs her head. That's DV. It's simple as. It's abusive behaviour - and that's what he's willing to show people."
Thirty-five percent of New Zealand women have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence and 55 percent have experienced intimate partner violence when psychological and emotional abuse are included, according to data from Clearinghouse.
Children are raised with huge differences based on expectations and perceived 'normal' behaviours of assigned genders, Clark says.
"As soon as a child comes out of the womb they are put in a gendered box - and that is where it starts."
Clark says people need to be more aware of what feeds domestic violence, and how to identify it.
"They talk about how to keep their girls safe and I go 'f*** that shit. I bet you when your child was born you sat her down and talked to her about how not to get raped'. 'Yep', they nod. 'Did you sit your boys down and tell them how not to rape?'. And they look at you and go 'no'.
"We talk to these groups about how to be decent men. F*** that shit. Learn how to be decent human beings. That's what it is about for me. Learn how to be a decent human being. Why do we need to gender everything? Because that's where the difference flows in.
"That's where abusive behaviour thrives...it grows up in that underwater, and then it emerges and it's a great big choking, like an oxygen weed. It takes up all that oxygen - and that's where it grows, in that ocean of difference.
"What I wish for my girls, for the women who I work with, is that that wasn't the case."
Clark says she's not worried about leaving any sort of legacy behind.
"I don't give a f*** what the legacy is. My thing is in the here and now... The legacy is, as one woman said to me, that our children and our grandchildren will grow up in a home without violence."