Locals have reported young people openly smoking meth in the main street of Kaikohe. Graphic/Paul Slater.
Locals have reported young people openly smoking meth in the main street of Kaikohe. Graphic/Paul Slater.
Lesley Allen, who has 178 criminal convictions, mentors addicts in Kaikohe.
The spotlight went on Northland’s drug problem recently when Ngāpuhi leader Mane Tahere said he had seen young people smoking meth in the main street of Kaikohe during the day.
He invited police to crack down on methamphetamine in Northland with tactics similar to the drug raids carried out in Ōpōtiki last year.
Lesley Allen knows all about prison and drug addiction. She’s lived it most of her life. She has 178 criminal convictions and has been jailed 48 times.
She told the Herald she grew up on the streets of Karangahape Rd, her father an addict who died on the streets, and her mother absent. She became an addict herself, and a serial burglar to pay for the drugs.
“I quit school at 12 and have been in the justice system since I was 14 ... I’ve done over 12 years in prison ... I’m a Māori female recidivist offender,” Allen told the Herald.
The tipping point in Allen’s life came when she moved North four years ago- and found purpose helping others make the break from drugs - as a mentor at the community-based Whakaoranga Whānau Recovery Hub, in Kaikohe.
“My recidivist offending came down to me having no whenua, nowhere to call home ... I never knew who I was as a Māori person. My cultural identity was lost” Allen told the Herald.
Allen has lapsed back into her addiction at times. “The four years I have been at the hub, I have turned my life around ... But I did lapse. I had been clean before that for years,” she told the Herald.
Her greatest supporter
Allen is supported by Rhonda Zielinski (Ngāpuhi) who runs Whakaoranga Whānau Recovery Hub.
It’s a passion project for her: her own home has a number of cabins where recovering addicts can stay.
The registered nurse told the Herald anyone working with addicts in Northland is fighting an uphill battle.
“Every addict I have ever known say they use methamphetamine because it numbs the pain from hunger, depression or stops the pain of being bashed up,” Zielinski, told the Herald.
“Methamphetamine is not in our DNA. We come from a line of chiefs and drugs is not our kaupapa.”
Zielinski said seeing former addicts like Allen giving back to others has been inspiring.
“Lesley is willing to help anyone who needs our services and make that first move to our whare,” she said.
Zielinski estimates her own mahi has helped and supported thousands.
The hard-handed approach by police in Ōpōtiki was criticised by local Māori there, but Northland Iwi told the Herald they are desperate to get their young people off the gear.
The Whakaoranga Whanau Recovery Hub in Kaikohe.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell told the Herald earlier this month that police can’t solve the issue by themselves and the Northland community needs to take control.
“We will do what we can to support the community,” he said.
“It requires local government, community and strong iwi leadership to get at the heart of the social issues that are driving this.”
Whakaoranga Whānau Recovery Hub founder and manager Rhonda Zielinski. Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf
Zielinski’s mission
It was while managing a Māori health provider that Zielinski first worked with people struggling with addiction.
“I saw potential in them and even though they were there for their own treatment I could see what great mentors they could be” she said.
One recovering addict, Jane Beamsley, stayed in her home - then personally funded the early days of the Recovery Hub.
These days, they receive funding from the Ministry of Health and have grown to deliver anger management courses, kapa haka, community services, te reo and pro social classes, as well as electronic monitoring bail addresses for people leaving prison.
When their 14-bed boarding house in Kaikohe was closed down by the council due to alleged fire risk, the electronically-monitored residents were rehoused in cabins on Zielinski’s farm.
She is planning another 10-bed intensive programme at another property she owns in Kaikohe.
Zielinski said though she and Allen and the others who work or volunteer at the hub are not blood relatives, they are whānau.
“Lesley has helped hundreds navigate their way through difficult places like justice and MSD and has become part of our Whakaoranga Whānau Recovery Hub whānau.
“And though none of us have blood ties, we are kaupapa whānau.
“I believe the biggest thing we offer addicts and their whānau is hope - that’s all anyone can have.”
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Joseph Los’e is an award winning journalist and joined NZME in 2022 as Kaupapa Māori Editor. Los’e was a chief reporter, news director at the Sunday News newspaper covering crime, justice and sport. He was also editor of the NZ Truth and, prior to joining NZME, worked at urban Māori organisation Whānau Waipareira.
