Family, food & goal setting all important for young model’s wellbeing
By Susie Hill
You might say a happy young woman eating, sleeping and walking on the beach is a typical Kiwi - but growing up in Kawerau, a mill town close to the North Island’s East Coast, isn’t like that for everyone, as a number of recent high profile youth suicides have shown.
New Zealand’s Next Top Model Danielle Hayes gives some insight into how she grew up happy and successful in such a troubled spot.
Mum, Dad, two brothers and two sisters are what keep New Zealand’s Next Top Model 2010 happy.
Bright as a button Kawerau woman Danielle Hayes says she is “95% happy” and her family is her rock.
“I’ve always got a smile on my dial and I like to help others to do that too,” she says.
That includes her brothers and sisters, who all get together for the important things in life, which really brings her lots of enjoyment. Right now the 20-year-old is living in Auckland with an aunty, so it’s harder to get home as often as she might like.
Growing up in rural New Zealand was a joy for her and she loves sharing the natural beauty of her hometown with her new-found modelling friends.
“Aim high, but don’t set unreachable goals. Be realistic and start with small steps.”
“I love camping, looking up at the mountains and doing bombs into the river.”
Danielle agreed to tell her story so others might see how a steadfast family, kohanga, nature, setting small goals for yourself and eating lots of food can get you a long way in life. Yes, she mentioned food.
Danielle says eating is a big part of her life and she’s been a “pretty big eater” since she was a baby.
“I still love to eat tinned baby food! Or a piece of steak,” she laughs.
She eats a mixture of healthy and unhealthy foods - but she knows she has to exercise a bit as well.
“I’m a living example of balance,” she quips and adds that she has discovered many models love food too, contrary to what you might expect.
Although she does admit there is no routine to her exercise and she is definitely not a gym bunny.
“I’m a bit of a hippy and like being on my own and taking long walks on the beach. And I like reflecting and sleeping.”
Best thinking done alone
She says she can think when she is alone. “It really helps me self evaluate.”
She’s done a lot of that. This now self -possessed young adult grew up a middle child, which she says brought its own set of challenges, and describes her early teens as “World War III”. She was bullied at school.
“I ended up not believing in myself, I felt singled out and not a ‘typical Maori’.
“I was called names… including ‘ugly’… and it did affect me. I have had to work on it and learn to rise above it,” Danielle says.
Her modeling success has gone a long way to help.
“Before, I was shy and not as outspoken as I am today. It has given me confidence and it’s been a brain booster. I like the new me.”
Two years from now Danielle, who only recently went to the South Island for the first time, wants to be modeling full time in Europe and in the long term she would like to fly planes.
Good advice for other young Kiwis
In an interview with the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly earlier this year, Danielle counted seven friends who had completed suicide within the last three years.
“It’s hard to constantly keep going to funerals, especially when it’s friends you never expected it from,” she told the magazine. “But you have to be strong and keep positive. That’s the only way to get through it.”
Danielle has been a high profile voice for suicide prevention in her home town this year, actively teaming up with local people to help form new support networks.
She knows there are serious social problems in Kawerau, but adds it’s not the only place having trouble with suicide. Her advice is applicable to young people in any community.
“Aim high, but don’t set unreachable goals. Be realistic and start with small steps.”
Danielle used this strategy when on Top Model.
“I wanted to make it to the Mansion - to tell my friends I slept in a Mansion! I didn’t think ‘oh now I will get to top 10’, I thought top five – small steps helped me evolve. Once I made top five, I thought top four. Then I thought just maybe I could actually win this!”
Danielle’s next piece of advice is: “Stay at school, but do what you like doing, make new friends if you aren’t in a good group.”
Put your hand up so people can see it
Her father, Ross, taught her not just to reach out for help when she needed it, but to “put her hand up, so people can see it”.
It helps to have a mum with a sixth sense, too, she adds. Trina Hayes is one such mother.
“If I’m not feeling so good I do all the wrong things like avoiding contact with people and not talking about what’s the matter. But mum can always spot it and she and dad step in. They sit me down and we talk and they reenergize me and I work my way back up.”
She says good parents are always there for you. As a child she followed her mum round the Kohanga Reo, which Danielle says has had a positive impact on her life. She and her siblings are bilingual and have been brought up through kohanga schooling.
As a teen, she moved out of Kawerau College when her parents saw it was no longer conducive to her education, and sent her to Whakatane High School, where she loved studying art and music.
Danielle Hayes is a strikingly smart person with a lot of backbone; she knows others living in Kawerau can be that way, too, if they put their mind to it and their hand up when they need to.
