With some difficult years behind him, Okusitino Kamo feels he is living the dream.
Tino and his family are enjoying a rural lifestyle and, as he nears the end of EIT degree studies, he is looking to a full-time job in which he can use his education, experience and skills.
Life hasn’t always been this good, however.
Tino’s parents moved from Samoa to south Auckland, where he was born and raised. Although clever enough, he says he didn’t do well at school. Despite the lack of academic achievement, he was employed in youth work and mental health but then suffered burn-out in the job.
The main trigger for a move to Hawke’s Bay, however, was his eldest daughter. He and wife Robynne were concerned that Nevaeh, then six years old, wasn’t thriving in her big Auckland school.
“Robynne had positive memories of attending a country school in Tikokino,” Tino says, “and so we decided to move to Poukawa, where her family has a farm.”
It’s suited Nevaeh, a creative youngster who, supported by her teachers, now strives to learn.
Tino, however, was unable to find a full-time job in Hawke’s Bay and he found the drop in income “quite dramatic”. He worked a season in a squash packing house, and for a time enjoyed the mentally undemanding job.
He also had stints working with teenagers on drug rehabilitation programmes but struggled to support his family of four children on the minimum hourly pay rate.
Told he had loads of experience but lacked the qualifications to progress, Tino came to a decision – “if I really want to do something then I have to get my qualifications”.
He enrolled for EIT’s Certificate in Education and Social Sciences which, he says, was a “really helpful warm-up” to the Bachelor of Applied Social Sciences. (EIT’s Bachelor of Social Work now replaces this degree.)
He admits the study hasn’t always easy. Although creative writing is a strength, adapting to an academic style and referencing his work among his challenges.
However, he found his lecturers helpful and the learning has benefitted him in a variety of ways.
He’s learnt about self-care on the degree programme, for example – “the theories that make sense now have helped me think about that.” Appreciating the importance of sanctuary for himself and his family, he’s happy to commute to Napier where he has a 70-day internship with CYFS.
The drive through countryside is good time to “download stuff”.
“We have a really good lifestyle, with the older two at Poukawa School and all the children able to play on the farm. “You can’t beat it,” Tino says of living in the country.
Subject to passing his last courses, CYFS have offered him a full-time position as a care and protection social worker.
Looking back on his life now, Tino says: “Someone told me that I needed to start dreaming. I reflected on that and you know, actually I am living my dream.”