Roy Williams
ROY WILLIAMS
I get a lot of pride in being a Maori in the Fire Service. And there's certainly mana. I get this from my whanau and friends. Doing fire safety work in the community is particularly important and the positive feedback I receive makes doing this work extremely rewarding. A classic example of this was some time ago when we realised there was not a version of the FireWise programme, used in mainstream schools, that we could use in kohanga and kura kaupapa. So a group of Maori firefighters got together and formed Te Roopu Tinei Ahi ki Tamaki-makau-rau to advocate for Maori fire safety educational material. Getting this produced was very pleasing and has resulted in a greater awareness of the dangers of fire with Maori families.
More useful information:
Read the NZFS Research paper on: Determining Effective Fire Safety Strategies for Maori