Minnie Ratima with her Hawke's Bay Today Person of the Year trophy in 2017. Photo File
The Napier Pilot City Trust has postponed its annual meeting following the death of Minnie Ratima, credited as an unlikely hero in its revival and survival over the last decades.
The acclaim came from veteran social justice campaigner and trust founder and stalwart Pat Magill, following Sunday's passing of Ratima, the 2017 Hawke's Bay Today Person of the Year.
"She was all honesty and a staunch campaigner for total justice," said Magill, who turns 94 next month, and who found a firm supporter for his causes after they met during a housing crisis protest at Parliament about seven years ago.
It wasn't long before she joined the trust, helping it refocus in hard times, said Magill, adding that "She, well, she saved us really. She asked us to look at what we were trying to do."
He said it had been all out of her comfort zone, but she was a "wonderful woman" who became a "fearless campaigner" for Maori, her Maraenui community, and the rights of people generally.
Longtime friend Kelly-Jo Fraser echoed that appreciation for Ratima's enthusiasm, whether it was taking children on holidays when they might not otherwise have had the opportunity, or fighting the campaigns against the loss of affordable housing in the area, or the emergence of drugs, including the synthetics which had once been available from shops in the area.
"She really would see a need and do her darnedest to fill it," she said.
Minnie Ratma remained a member of the Pilot City Trust until she died after a lengthy battle with a terminal illness.
Fellow trustee Mark Cleary first met Ms Ratima as struggling mother of pupils when he was principal of Colenso High School (now William Colenso College) about 20 years ago.
"Minnie has been central to the kaupapa of the Pilot City Trust for many years and we are all feeling the loss," he said.
Once a child runaway and state ward, Ratima came to public attention in 2013, spearheading a campaign to stop what she believed was the wrongful eviction of state housing tenants amid the Housing Corporation's demolition and removal of state housing in the Napier communities of Maraenui and Marewa where she grew up.
Considerably ahead of the play on the issue in comparison with other parts of the country where there were similar issues, she linked with other campaigners such as Magill and Napier City Council member Maxine Boag.
Magill, with over half his years spent battling issues of social injustice, said it was through the housing issue that he met Ratima when they were together with a group from Hawke's Bay at the housing protest.
Ratima had, however, recalled Magill and his commitment from days at child and teen centre the Downtown Y in Magill's days at the head of the YMCA in Napier in the 1970s.
In the last seven years she joined him in challenging everyone, from the Prime Minister to members of her own Maraenui community, to support or align with the cause.
"Locally, when she decided a walk or event was on … they followed," said Magill. "She was like a Pied Piper. 'We're going on the bus,' she'd say, and they'd all be on the bus."
Having cut her teeth on going global with a visit with Magill to Vanuatu in 2017, she travelled with him to speak at the International Conference on Penal Abolition in London the next year.
Despite her limited experience among a range of academics and luminaries in such arenas, her opening-day, conference-headlining moment reflecting on high New Zealand rates of imprisonment and social issue links drew overwhelming praise from across the spectrum.
A Canadian indigenous studies scholar thought she was a professor, and invited her to attend a conference in Canada if it could be arranged, Magill recalls.
With little history of committee or protest involvement, she had become one of Magill's closest allies, joining him not only at conferences and meetings, but on such ventures as his Te Araroa Offers Hope hikoi on a national walk from Cape Reinga to Bluff.
Magill said the aim, roping in MPs, mayors, police officers and school and community leaders at various times, was to complete the 3000km-plus "in our lifetime".
He encapsulates her determination by relating one of those stages.
"One of the days was 31 kilometres," he said. "It was bloody tough. Minnie was a bit tired and stopped at about 28km. The next morning her tent was empty – she'd got up at 4am to do the other 3 kilometres.
"I think she saw it as trailblazing," he said. "An alternative to Outward Bound. That's what she called it."
Serving as a Maori Warden, Ratima would also become a member of emerging local group Tu Tangata Maraenui, the Napier Pilot City Trust, and, with Michelle Boag, the Maraenui Rugby and Sports Assn committee.
Mark Cleary said: "It is with a heavy heart that we have learnt that our wāhine toa and trustee Minnie Ratima has left this world."
Many friends and family visited her at home in recent weeks, including on her 56th birthday on July 26.
Her tangi is expected to end on with a service tomorrowat Tangoio Marae, on State Highway 2 north of Napier, starting at 11am.