Karena Hart is a solo mum who works hard for what she and her 6-year-old son Rangi have. She works as a teacher aide at Te Rangi Aniwaniwa, and picks up extra contract work when she can, to help make ends meet.
Last year she began scrimping and scraping harderthan ever, to set aside money for a trip to Italy that she is now about to embark on as part of a group promoting ki-o-rahi and for an international kite festival, where she will be part of a kapa haka party.
So life was good - until April 4, when a thief entered her home and stole from her.
She discovered later that the thief had taken her iPod and a Nokia cell phone, but what really hurt was the loss of the $1400 she had saved so hard to set aside for Italy.
She will still be travelling - "I am very lucky to be going and I'm still grateful to be going," she said - but without the spending money, and the money she will need for accommodation, transfers and transport, that she worked so hard for.
"I live out at Whatuwhiwhi, and generally I feel that I am a very lucky person," she said.
"Life is good, and I am very grateful for everything. I work hard and save hard to get the things I want.
"I had been stashing cash in my bedroom, in my home, and one day I noticed that all my savings had been taken. Someone felt they needed to take my hard work for themselves.
"Part of me realises that I should not have had that amount of money in my house, but I always felt quite safe in my own home."
Not any more she doesn't. She now hears noises that once she probably wouldn't have noticed. She worries whether the thief is known to her, and whether she can trust people who once she would never have questioned.
Ms Hart said she had now learned a hard lesson.
"My heart sank when I found that my money had been taken," she said.
"I don't have insurance; I can't afford it at the moment."
The money was stolen from a carved wooden box, which was unlikely to yield fingerprints, but she hoped that there were still some decent people "out there" who would come forward if they had any idea about who was responsible.
"I worked so hard to save that money. Please contact the Age if you have any information or have heard anything at all about this."
