Nina Olmedo-Perez is one of Barnardos’ social workers. She calls Invercargill home, but her journey to get to where she is today was not an easy one - it began far away from the safety of her home in Southland.

Nina was born in Santiago, Chile. At the time, her father was a social worker working with young people and a human rights activist. Due to a military coup in Chile, many activists were rounded up, arrested or even killed.

Nina’s father fled the country to neighbouring Argentina. Eight months later, Nina and the rest of her family were able to join him. Once they arrived in Argentina, Nina and her family were able to apply for refugee status to the United Nations (UN). Once officially recognised as refugees, their case was put forward to different countries, including New Zealand. As political instability was growing in Argentina, Nina’s family case was quickly accepted for settlement in New Zealand as part of our refugee quota.

“All the adults opened up a map and they couldn’t find where New Zealand was, but then someone finally pointed out this small little dot among the rest of the world. We were thinking: ‘Where are we going? This is such a small island', but as long as we were going to be safe, that was all that mattered to us,” says Nina.

Moving to Aotearoa

Stepping off the plane to New Zealand, Nina felt a sense of relief, happiness and curiosity. Nina and her family spent the first six weeks in Auckland at a Refugee Resettlement Centre, before settling into Wellington which she called home for the rest of her schooling years.

“When we moved to New Zealand, it was an eye-opener. I saw a lot of poverty, family violence and neglect. Many people around us were struggling and going through hard times,” says Nina.

Growing up, Nina was a strong, assertive and determined young woman. She believed in social justice and speaking up. Nina was beginning to feel a longing to help others,

“I began feeling a very strong desire to help others, to make their journey easier, to support others who were struggling, this passion and desire has never left me,” says Nina.

Lived experiences

As years passed by, Nina moved to Palmerston North, got married and had two children from that marriage. There, she also fell in love with social work when volunteering at the Palmerston North Polytechnic supporting former refugees and migrants.

After kickstarting her social work career in Palmerston North, she moved to Hamilton with her family to study social work. Despite having many great things going on, Nina was hiding a big secret, one that was too confronting to share at the time.

“I got married to a very abusive man but, I say that everything happens for a reason. The abuse activated me to have a passion to support women who have or are experiencing family violence. I wanted to support them through this journey because I understand what they are going through.”

“I was fortunate to have connections at the Hamilton Abuse and Intervention Programme (HAIP), they supported me through this time and I eventually got him out of my life for good,” says Nina.

Going through such a difficult and traumatic experience influenced Nina even more. She undertook study through Waikato University and successfully attained a degree in social sciences with a double major in sociology and social anthropology and started working as a social worker.

Working at Barnardos

After many years of social work experience, Nina joined Barnardos in South Auckland and then West Auckland as a LEAP social worker, and today, she’s supporting whānau from our Barnardos office in Invercargill.

Through our LEAP service, we deliver social work support to tamariki and whānau facing multiple and complex challenges. It is a unique service – the type of support we offer is flexible; we adapt to the situation of the whānau and leave aside pre-designed programmes, and the diversity of our staff and their skills means we can address several needs.

“What feeds my soul is those light-bulb moments, those moments when you are working with a really resistant family, someone who might say: ‘Who the hell are you to give me parenting advice?’, and then seeing the shift that happens when you build a really good rapport with them, you see the walls start to fall, you see the shift in their demeanour, they sit up straight and start to confide in you a lot more. It really is fulfilling to see, because there lies the window of opportunity to make a real difference, for the whānau to make real changes that will benefit their children and overall will lead to positive outcomes for the whole whanau,” says Nina.

“When I am delivering the Children’s Safety Programmes (CSP), a big win for me is when a child is able to disclose the abuse that they may have been hiding. During the CSP, children learn to identify forms of abuse or they start to notice what could lead to abuse and they learn that they have the right to be safe and have the right to tell a safe person any abuse that they may have experienced. They learn to recognise what has happened to them was not their fault. That is a powerful moment and always will be.”

From refugee to survivor to social worker