Maybe it ends in Naenae?

I lived in Naenae, Lower Hutt, for several years, before our family moved a few kilometres north to Upper Hutt. When we shifted, I thought about changing my pen name to ‘Straight Outta Trentham’, but rapidly realised I couldn’t be bothered. And anyway, I still feel an allegiance to the old place. Like anywhere, it’s so much more than what you see in the news: more vibrant, more resilient, more hopeful.

But let’s be blunt. Naenae’s been in the news a lot, and it’s not the good stories making headlines.

The reasons any place has challenges are complex - usually a changing economy hand-in-hand with an unchanging cultural dispossession. These reasons unfurl over decades. In Naenae’s case, the challenges have been made worse by a loss of amenities in recent times. The supermarket. The post office. For a while, the swimming pool, which was closed in 2019 for a five-year seismic strengthening and upgrade.

The beginning of this story - or maybe the pretext for it - was some kind of brawl between teenagers, in the weekend I think, and outside the newly re-opened swimming pool. Apparently, a woman stepped forward to break it up, and it inspired her to start a movement.

I’m still a member of the Lower Hutt community Facebook page, and a couple of days ago, a post caught my eye. The post was titled, To our youth.

I won’t give the name of the woman who broke up the fight and made the post - I don’t think she’s ultimately the problem - but I’ll call her ‘the organiser’. She posted on behalf of another page called the King Movement NZ, calling herself its operations manager. At another time, I would’ve assumed good intentions and wished her well, probably without a second thought.

[Picture description: This is the King Movement NZ image of a lion wearing a crown. If I’m using Google Images correctly, which is not guaranteed for a confused middle-aged woman, it’s been borrowed and adapted from other sources.]

And what about the content of this To our youth post?

In it, the organiser explained how she’d been motivated by the teenagers’ brawl to do something positive for the community. On 28 February, the King Movement NZ would host its first free two-hour event for rangatahi in Naenae, with rap, hip hop, fitness and kai. The post added, If you see our street teams walking around with our king movement NZ tops in your area come say hi to us we are There to talk and give you something to do rather than throwing hands !! Adults were invited to message King Movement NZ on Facebook to register their kids.

I can’t say whether my alarm bells went off prematurely.

Right now, I’m a little sensitive to groups seeking to work with kids, without saying if they’re following the transparency and safety steps this mahi requires. I’m a whole lot more sensitive to groups of adults roaming around neighbourhoods in matching t-shirts with bros-for-Christ-and-also-phallic-swords undertones, inviting kids to approach them.

But if my alarm bells went off at the Facebook post, I wasn’t the only one. The community’s questions came thick and fast.

Who is the group exactly? Not much of an answer, except to say it isn’t a church group, and the event ‘isn’t funded’.

Is the group connected with the community - social services, the marae, Māori wardens? No response.

Why were the King Movement NZ Facebook page, and the personal Facebook account of the organiser, only created a few days ago? No direct response, but a woman who said she knew the organiser said the organiser’s Facebook account had been hacked, so she’d had to start a new one. Hmmm. The friend suggested messaging the organiser directly.

Who will be the actual people working with the kids and taking part in the street teams - and have they been vetted by police? Radio silence.

And other community members cut straight to the chase: This is Destiny Church, isn’t it?

Community members were calling on the organiser to be upfront about both the event and King Movement NZ. When they got nothing, they started sleuthing, uncovering and sharing connections between the organiser, her partner in the event, and … you guessed it. I did as suggested, and flicked the organiser a message directly. In fairness to her, she replied pretty promptly. She didn’t explain what King Movement NZ is, but said she’d been asked by Hutt City Council (who own the venue she’s booked for the event) to police vet her people. She told me she’s working on it.

As far as I can tell, the original To our youth post by King Movement NZ has been removed. A second post was then made - although it, too, seems to have been deleted.

The second post had more details about the 28 February event. Someone called Ice G Music is now billed as a guest speaker. I can’t find any trace of this person online. The closest I can find is someone called Ice GZ Music. Here’s what I found on Ice GZ Music’s page, making me hope and pray it’s not the same person.

[Photo description: A sexualised cartoon of a woman. Yep.]

The 7 March event features a Let’s talk it out bro session (it’s not clear if non-bros can attend). There’s a speaker called DJ Playupps - someone I can also find no trace of online. That makes it unclear whether he’s an appropriate person to work with rangatahi who may be vulnerable, and who may be placed in a situation where they disclose personal information. I guess that’s what they call a leap of faith.

Underneath this second post by King Movement NZ, an anonymous commenter asked if her son could attend their event. The organiser asked for more information, and the commenter replied they didn’t want to share too much with strangers online - adding that their son was being bullied. The organiser asked the commenter to send the names of their boy’s bullies, so if the organiser knew them she could talk to them. I baulked. People have been invited to register their kids with the event - with no assurance around what King Movement NZ might do with that, or any other, information on these rangatahi.

I rang Hutt City Council, and it was clear as day I wasn’t the first. They responded with fantastic professionalism, ringing me back this afternoon with an update. They explained that there’s a question whether the events will go ahead - but if they do, the Council and Team Naenae (a great local trust) will work with King Movement NZ to ensure the right health and safety measures are in place. That’s something.

I tossed up whether I should write about this, or even poke my nose into it. Naenae isn’t my home anymore, even if I still care about it. My own kids are safe - or will be, at least, so long as the trans one never goes to a Pride event when Destiny Church is nearby. And I don’t want to make assumptions about the organiser. Faith is a complex thing, and while I don’t like her approach, I don’t get to judge her motives or her character.

Here’s what decided me to publish.

The rangatahi in Naenae deserve fun. They deserve to rap and dance and raise the roof, enjoy a kai together after. They deserve to hang out, laugh, relax, feel great about every part of who they are, forget for a moment whatever weighs them down. They deserve to be looked at through eyes that see only their potential. They deserve time, conversation, relationships and trust - and all the manaaki in the world, because they’re taonga.

But they deserve all these things from adults with no damn agenda - except for those kids themselves.

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