Hook (Ng\u0101puhi, Ng\u0101ti Porou, Ng\u0101ti Kahungungu, Ng\u0101i T\u016bhoe) grew up surrounded by academics and wh\u0101nau who had attended university.<\/p>\n
Receiving the Vice-Chancellor\u2019s Award for Massey University while at Bay of Islands College was an early indication that university was in her future.<\/p>\n
Instead, life unfolded differently when she had her first child at 17.<\/p>\n
Between raising her children and working fulltime, she completed legal executive and tourism diplomas.<\/p>\n
Yet her ambition kept growing.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t want to work for a lawyer; she wanted to be one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, \u2018Yeah, this is me, I\u2019m going to law school\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sudden death of Hook\u2019s brother Teina in 2016 halted her plans as she helped raise his three children alongside her own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no regrets; it was the right thing to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
When Hook turned 35, she decided it was the time to pursue the career she\u2019d always planned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe my life experiences and being a witness to wh\u0101nau impacted by the criminal justice system gave me perspective to understand what I was actually studying for,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Raised in Te R\u0101whiti, Hook observed many loved ones moving in and out of prison or feeling the effects of the justice system.<\/p>\n
Learning about the impact of colonisation helped Hook understand what she had witnessed in her own wh\u0101nau.<\/p>\n
Rahema Hook grew up in Te R\u0101whiti and has just completed a law degree at the University of Auckland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up seeing the effects of poverty and a lack of resources within my wh\u0101nau, but I did not understand where those disadvantages came from,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Law school also deepened her understanding of systemic racism on M\u0101ori wh\u0101nau.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy experiences gave me fuel, sometimes heartache, but also the motivation to get the degree done.\u201d<\/p>\n
During Hook\u2019s studies, she became a proud grandmother.<\/p>\n
On September 24, Hook walked across the stage, feeling relieved.<\/p>\n
With a few stages still to complete before she\u2019s a fully fledged lawyer, Hook envisions living on her own whenua at Te R\u0101whiti, travelling each day to one of Northland\u2019s courthouses.<\/p>\n
She was determined to use her knowledge to equip her own community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s legal information that many people do not know [is] available to them,\u201d Hook said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo now, I can confidently go back and put people on to the right pathways or give them a better start to engage in their own justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brodie Stone covers crime and emergency for the Northern Advocate. She has spent most of her life in Whang\u0101rei and is passionate about delving into issues that matter to Northlanders and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hook (Ng\u0101puhi, Ng\u0101ti Porou, Ng\u0101ti Kahungungu, Ng\u0101i T\u016bhoe) grew up surrounded by academics and wh\u0101nau who had attended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,151282,16717,20438,1061,6745,634,31898,23935,5838,30538,28162,154819,6148,8307,6093,2720,6178,32934,111,43,139,1067,24926,69,90,305190,2515,6211,223,61,30645,810,102],"class_list":["post-619994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-aspirations","tag-becoming","tag-brothers","tag-children","tag-choice","tag-death","tag-degree","tag-graduates","tag-help","tag-helping","tag-hold","tag-hook","tag-justice","tag-law","tag-little","tag-mori","tag-mother","tag-navigate","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-northlands","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-rahema","tag-raise","tag-system","tag-the","tag-to","tag-unexpected","tag-up","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}