The winter sky throws its grey overcoat over Mosgiel, as a police car drives down the main street. Inside a bustling, warm cafe, James Piho and teenager Shade Rowe share how Dunedin not-for-profit youth development organisation Rock Solid helped steer their lives away from the foreboding possibility of prison to a path of hope, change and building up others.
Quietly spoken and polite, Shade is a 17-year-old Taieri College pupil, and the 2018 poster boy for Otago youth rugby league recruitment. Sitting opposite, his mentor and senior boys Rock Solid youth worker, James, listens to Shade confidently - yet pensively - answering questions.
This isn't about them, they insist. They are cautious participants in this interview, preferring the attention be focused on the charity, not on themselves. But they also know their lives would look very different, had Rock Solid not featured in those difficult teenage years.
"I was, like, a little bit of a trouble maker. I wasn't necessarily trouble, I was just quite lost in finding myself. I would get real cheeky about everything just to get myself out of a situation. Manners were quite shocking, and I was hanging out with older people who were doing wrong stuff. I wasn't doing the wrong stuff, but I was seeing it and starting to believe it was cool," Shade says.
Theft was one regular activity Shade says he witnessed. That, and the consumption of alcohol.
He was in year 9 when it was suggested he join a friend at Rock Solid, which is now based in the Carisbrook School hall. Groups met after school and in the evenings, as they do now, for development programmes catering to young people aged 8 to 18 years.
"I was lucky, and it was at that point I was taken right away from that [negative culture]. I wasn't around it so much as I became really busy with Rock Solid. I look at them now, and I'm not saying anything bad about them, but it could have gone way better for them if they had got the same opportunities as I did."
Rock Solid was established 15 years ago by the Straight Up Trust, and focuses on building a sense of belonging, resilience, trust and long-term relationships with youth in South Dunedin. Paid staff, together with 30 volunteers, work by mentoring, offering sport activities, providing youth workers in schools and assisting with leadership and life-skill coaching.
Shade says the organisation was like a second home when he began.
"It was somewhere to go when there were problems at home. It was somewhere to be when I just wanted to have fun. If I wanted to hear other people's problems or hear other stories, it was the sort of place I could connect with. It was a place to go and just be yourself. There was no judging people. There's always a lot of laughter so it's always a good place to be," he says.
Shade says he also received encouragement from the Rock Solid youth workers to try for the Junior Warriors a few years ago, and at present plays for the Otago Maori Rugby team.
And then there's his mentor, James.
"It means heaps. He's always someone I can go to. It's probably one of the strongest relationships I have had with an adult outside of my last name," Shade says.
And it's a place where people are encouraged to make goals and pursue them.
Shade loves his sport, and dreams of playing for the New Zealand Warriors, a passion he shares with James. He is also quick to add the programmes have taught him much more.
"Rugby has always been a thing for me, but I guess I want to finish school. It's a big thing. Not many people in my family have done it, and I just want to, in the future, put forward more than enough for my family, if I do have one. Once that's in place, that's when I will start giving back. I'll always give back, but just give back in the way that people can come and talk to me if they have a need," he says.
James, a former Rock Solid youth member himself, knows these dreams well. Now also juggling the roles of Maori and Pacific Island mentor at Taieri College, husband, and father to two young girls, he is passionate about giving back to the youth community.
Rock Solid's senior boys' group, which is led by James, made a huge effort in 2017 to focus on helping others. The group made food for those in need, as well as assisting at community events.
But it was back in 1996, when James' intermediate school teacher suggested he attend Rock Solid, that his direction changed, and James never looked back. He admits he would possibly be in jail or dead, had it not been for the organisation.
"I was quite a naughty kid. I was doing things at the time that was going to lead me down the wrong track. If I wasn't made aware of what I was doing, I would probably end up a lot worse than I am today.
"That's probably the brutal honesty about it. I've shared with these boys that I believe it saved my life," he says.
Rock Solid, James says, gave him a place to belong to and be heard.
"There were a few things going on in my life. I just needed a place to go and vent, and feel safe, and that's what Rock Solid was. It helped me understand what was right and what was wrong. It gave me a place where I thought, well, maybe I can be something, and help me build up my own dreams.
"It's been quite cool to be able to do the same for some of these boys," James says, watching the time closely as he shares. Shade is due back in class soon, and it's obvious that James takes his responsibility seriously.
Talking about the organisation with its manager and youth team leader, Kristin Jack, it's clear that no-one likes to claim ownership of its success; that being the positive input into the lives of more than 100 young people each week, a number that has increased over the years.
"One of the great things in Dunedin is that we are able to work co-operatively and share with other youth development organisations, like Otago Youth Wellness, Malcam and Te Hou Ora," Kristin says.
But resources are fully stretched, he says, with programmes and costs (running groups, camps, vehicles and feeding young people) totalling $140,000 annually.
"So yes, we could do more and reach more kids if we could afford to pay our [part-time] youth workers to do more hours. They all work second jobs to keep themselves afloat. But we do manage to do a lot on a very small budget, mainly because of the commitment and passion of the youth workers and because we have so many volunteer leaders each year," Kristin says.
Rock Solid
• For more information about the work of Rock Solid, visit www.rocksoliddunedin.co.nz
