The Aunties

Sorry! My number is 027 522 8115 - or email whaeapower@aunties.co.nz

Living & Co Ultra Soft Plush Blanket Black | The Warehouse Buy Living & Co Ultra Soft Plush Blanket at The Warehouse

Kia Ora community. We’re doing a blanket drive at the mo- whanau women won’t use heaters/heat pumps bc $ solution is blankets. WH has sale on www.thewarehouse.co.nz/p/living-co-...

Text me 02753228115 and I’ll give you my address to deliver to.

Ty x

Great T-shirt, my love

Wants and Needs This is our current list of wants and needs (May 2025).  Please message Jackie at whaeapower@aunties.co.nz and she'll put you directly in contact with the woman who needs whatever you have.  We are ab...

If everyone could please repost this and share it on ur social media please….

Until we figure out how to link it from our website main page…

This is absolutely everything the women need right now - furniture etc…
aunties.co.nz/pages/wants-...

This morning I had two very special visitors.
And they coincidentally came pretty much at the same time.

It was such a special and joyous thing. Bc the aunties whānau women v rarely see each other offline.

These photos are used with their express permission.

Warnings from the past I wish people knew more history Every year I teach about Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Stalin’s Russia. I teach about Slavery in the USA and the evils of segregation. I teach about the long impa…

Clementine Fraser is a history teacher and scholar.
She wrote this piece yday -long form - about our plunging into fascism. What it looks like. What history teaches us. Pls read it and share it.

clementinefraser.com/2025/04/24/w...

My friend Clem is a history teacher and scholar.
She’s written this astounding piece which draws direct correlation btw the Nazis and what’s happening right now….

m.facebook.com/story.php?st...

And I’d add this.

If you’re against all this anti trans bullshit, you need to speak out. Do it for the kids. So many trans kids frightened right now.

Some of them will have loving families, some will not.

I think they need to hear your voices. I think that’s important.

Just a challenge x

The moment Peters and his ilk start addressing our rates of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, pay equity, safeguarding access to abortion…is the moment I say

Well done, now you’re addressing women’s rights.

Cis men are the biggest predators of cis women.

The end.

4/4
I’m just telling you this, because it’s incredibly hard not to be frustrated. Civilians who haven’t had experience I have won’t know what to do, will give up. You just have to keep trying. You just have to keep listening. You just have to keep loving.
Nothing changes until they change it.

3/4
She says, I’m exhausted. I tell her if he smashes this phone, we can’t replace it again. She’s just bought a new laptop. He will likely smash that too. If he does that, she says, it’s over. She’s not ready.

2/4
My strong advice is to call police for breach of PSO that’s already in place. I don’t think she will. We’ve had the same conversation 1000 times. And I know we likely will have it 1000 more. Until she’s ready, nothing changes.

1/4
One of the auntie’s Whānau women in abusive rship. It’s been a yr but he indicated v early on that he was abusive.
She messages me that he smashed her phone, the 2nd one.
She comes to see me, we talk 2 hrs.

This was just a general GP and emergency clinic, not hers, but I know she has a good relationship with her one. I just get sensed by the lack of knowledge around trauma considering how many people carry it around.

4/4 so if you’re a Dr, pls do not attempt to pacify with talk of mindfulness and walks. Ppl with severe anxiety, whether through trauma or not, require more than glib surface solutions.
In this case, trauma is carried in the body. And pushing through isn’t helpful.

3/4 She will see her own GP tomorrow. And finally discuss medication that can at least make her functional again. Take the edge off.
She has “chill pills” in the meantime.
And is relieved bc now she knows that all her trigger managing strategies can’t touch the anxiety right now.

2/4
As we wait, I hold her tight. Stroke her hair. She rests her head on my bosom.

They do testing.
It’s “just anxiety”.

The DR does what most drs do.

Suggests mindfulness breathing + walks on the beach.

I respectfully tell her what’s what.
That CPTSD is not long term improved by such things.

1/4

Trauma stays in the body.

This morning she messages to ask me to take her to the medical clinic. She has been super anxious for a while. Overwhelmed. Tried all her strategies. Nothing works. Can’t breathe. Nausea. Dizziness. She’s scared. Thinks she will die.

I haven’t seen her in person for over a year.
Major depression. Anxiety. CPTSD kicking her arse. A lot of kids, both hers and whangaied. An older teen who externalises his pain and anger in harmful ways.
But since last yr she’s been seeing an ACC accredited therapist.
And that is huge.

3/3

What you are here to do.
Very few of them have the courage. I believe politicians like Arena do.

2/3 I have consulted with a number of MPs over the yrs - mostly Greens and Lab.

How can we help? they always ask. What needs to change?

And my answer is always the same.

Have the courage to do what you need to do, for the people who are most in need of you to do that.

1/3 Today Arena Williams, the MP for Manurewa (Labour) came with her communications advisor Charlotte to my house to talk about the whānau women’s concerns (which they had fed back to me), and to ask my thoughts on everything that’s going on under this government.

She’s very very cool

She’s so happy, but she kept saying I’ve got so much work to do. It’s so dirty. It was not dirty. She’s just got VERY HIGH standards. 🤣

Took Iggy to visit Annette today. In her v own house.
First time since she left the violence 8 yrs ago that’s she’s in her own place.
Emergency and transitional housing all this time.
Overjoyed for her.

Hi love can you pls email me whaeapower@aunties.co.nz and I’ll give you the lowdown

You tell me how many ppl you can accomodate and I’ll assign you one of the aunties whānau women and kids.
Chocolate, whatever eastery goodies you want. You talk direct to them….

It’s only 5 wks til Easter. Wanna be one of our Easter Bunnies?

27 women, 97 kids and grandkids to share chocolatey joy with….

Msg me if you’re keen.

7. It wasn’t your fault.
None of it was your fault.

It was the adults in your life who let you down, who weren’t enough - for their own reasons. You don’t need to carry it anymore.

The end

6.
And then just recently she remembered. They couldn’t afford stamps, when she was a child. And so she had put her design in the postbox. And it hadn’t, of course, reached its destination.

It wasn’t her failure, ever.

And yet.

I have used this story to remind you that you were a child.