Vanessa Oliver’s tenacity is to be rewarded this week when the mother-of-two graduates with a Bachelor of Recreation and Sport.
Venus, as she is generally known, enrolled at EIT after leaving Sacred Heart College. But, bored with study at that time, she left to work for a Napier courier company.
What pulled her up was having her daughter Quinn, now two years old.
“That brought my future into focus and I decided to finish my degree. I didn’t want to be in customer service for the rest of my life,” the 24-year-old says of the job that helps support her family.
Starting back at EIT after several years away, Venus had her second child, son Axel, in November after sitting her final exams early.
“Last year, with two littlies under two, full-time study and a placement, that was busy, very busy,” she says. “But in hindsight, it’s been good. Having children is the biggest learning curve, it makes you grow.”
Venus has liked sport ever since she can remember.
“I always found it easy. PE used to be my favourite subject. I took it as a seventh form subject so thought why not continue with it. I played netball all the way through school and represented Hawke’s Bay in Under-13 softball.”
These days, she hasn’t the time to play sport. Returning to work at the start of the year, she manages to exercise during her lunch break, running to a mixed martial arts class in the Onekawa industrial area.
Appreciating a mother’s need for time management skills helped in her final degree-year placement, arranged through Sport Hawke’s Bay. Based at the Hawke’s Bay Teen Parent Unit on William Colenso College grounds, Venus organised one-hour cross fitness classes for students and used Facebook and other social media to motivate the mothers.
Now she is excited to have a contract with Sport Hawke’s Bay to deliver a programme she helped develop for the teen parents. She splits the five hours a week between the Napier-based unit and the newly-established teen parent school in Flaxmere.
“I’m just so excited to have a foot in the door,” she says of the programme parents named Mean Mumzies – Mean for motivation, exercise, attitude and nutrition.
“I love working with mums who are of different ethnicities and all in different situations. I can totally relate to them because I have sleepless nights with my own children. The mums are so cool.”
Time away from her office job is covered by a workmate. “I’m very lucky to have such an understanding boss,” she says of this job-share arrangement.
Venus is excited about becoming the first of her siblings to be capped. Her parents are very supportive of all their children, she says, and the two oldest of her five younger brothers are hard on her heels with their tertiary studies.
“It’s going to look good to have the Sport Hawke’s Bay contract on my cv, especially having just finished study at EIT. It’s awesome. I feel community health is my place in the sport and recreation industry.”