“Voyce Whakarongo Mai is about creating not only a voice but connecting with children in care. Isolation should not be a thing in our country when there are over 5000 young people in our care system. We need to create a culture from within and that is exactly what we are going to do.”
Tupua was raised under Child Youth & Family for 12 years. He says he experienced both physical and sexual abuse by CYF’s caregivers. When he was seven years old he tried to speak out about the abuse, “I took one of them to court he did some horrible stuff. The sad thing is this is another example of how all the systems fail us, the justice system, so he (the caregiver) was up against 11 charges he was acquitted on all but one, and that was for assaulting me.”
Tupua was part of the youth advisory group that helped the government when they overhauled Child Youth & Family now Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry for Vulnerable Children.
Tupua believes the insight provided by those who experienced abuse in state care is the beginning of change. “Let’s get the people who we have failed, who we have harmed and enable them to turn that very negative thing that we have installed into them and use it in a creative way, that will pave the way forward for our future generations. Because it is the past that we have that is real essential knowledge in terms of getting forward and making this right.”
Tupua is happy to be the poster boy for change but he won’t be silenced and says he will always speak his truth in order to implement change for children in state care.
“They know what they have at the moment is a system that bridges Social Development to Justice to Corrections. So really they have set us up for a lifestyle that they can't sustain anymore. I think that they have understood and sadly it all comes down to money, I know politicians only know money language. They know that they are spending so much money on locking us up as a result of their failings and they can't afford to keep doing that and money is the motivator I believe.”
Tupua supports the public call for a full government inquiry into state care abuse.