Lesson in determination

Marietta Ulugia's teachers used to tell her she'd never amount to anything. They couldn't have been more wrong. Joseph Barratt reports.

Marietta Ulugia was told she would be just another statistic on the unemployment benefit. That's what primary, intermediate and high school teachers had told her, adding that she'd amount to nothing.
Eventually she came to believe it was true. Mrs Ulugia dropped out of school at 15 thinking she was "dumb''. She had no qualifications and was barely able to read. She recalls one teacher wondering aloud why she bothered teaching her to write as she
would only ever use it to fill out benefit forms.
At 16, Mrs Ulugia became pregnant and was running with gangs and "doing not very nice things. I thought this was life.''
But, now, she is living proof that it's possible to break the cycle. At 39, she's proven her teachers wrong. She has amounted to something: she is a teacher.
Born into a family of seven children with a single, Samoan-born working mother, education was never a focus.
Mrs Ulugia, who had been with gangs and taking drugs for most of her formative years, recognised she'd reached a turning point when she married at 22. She and her husband moved to Porirua, which removed her from the gang culture. They also had two more children.
She says it was a tough move initially because "you were comfortable in the family and language structure around the gangs. But when I look back I'm so thankful. When I look now, the same friends I had then are still doing the same things as before, except they are on to harder drugs like P.''
As her youngest children reached preschool age, friends recommended she try a Home Interaction Programme For Parents and Youngsters, or Hippy for short. It is a home-based programme to help parents become actively involved in their children's education.
"At first I resisted which, I guess, came from my own background.''
But soon she was learning and that sparked an interest in studying at a higher level. Mrs Ulugia moved back to Auckland in her late 20s, swallowed her pride and returned to high school to complete fifth and sixth forms. When she passed all her fifth-form subjects
except typing she knew she could do more. "It was such a good feeling. I felt like I could do anything.
"For so many years I had a voice in the back of my head saying that I was dumb. Now I knew I wasn't.'' The next step was foundation studies at the Manukau Institute of Technology.
"The more I learned, the more excited I was. I used to tell my kids stuff that I had learned and they used to say, 'Yeah, we already know that, Mum,' - but I didn't care.''
Encouraged by her achievements, Mrs Ulugia chose to upskill - and ensure other people  didn't endure the same problems she had. She was accepted at teachers' college through the University of Auckland.
"When I walked down Queen St for graduation, after everything I had been through, I was so happy I had tears in my eyes. I had finally done it.''
She soon became a co-ordinator for Hippy, helping parents she knows are in similar circumstances to those she once experienced. Today she is a Hippy co-ordinator based at Rongomai Primary School in Flatbush, South Auckland.
Mrs Ulugia's own children are thriving in the environment of learning she has created. Her two youngest are in senior years at high school and the other is at university. "I learned about the different styles of learning and how every child is different.''
They have dreams of what they want out of life and are working towards it. Mrs Ulugia couldn't be prouder.