Yesterday we had a village meeting in regard to the future of Te Hurihanga, the youth justice facility here at Te Ara Hou village. It’s a pilot project, aimed at young men between 14 and 17 involved in crimes or violence, who were repeatedly coming before the Youth Court.

Te Hurihanga project gives them a chance to turn their lives around. It is a sort of re-education from a directionless life to a meaningful one.

It’s a three-year project and it is due soon for an assessment and review. It has been hugely successful but, apparently, quite expensive. This is why there is some uncertainty on whether the government is willing to continue to fund it or not.

Te Hurihanga caused so much drama and protest when it arrived few years ago. That was because some people in the neighborhood weren’t very comfortable with the idea of having of a facility targeting young offenders almost outside their doorstep. But to the rest of the village the boys in the programme have always been much more than just their criminal record. Many people here see them as their own children and have made it clear from the very beginning that they’d support the whole project, the boys and the staff all the way through the difficult journey of rehabilitation. Because that’ s the ethos of the village we live in: restoring hope, dignity and confidence of all the people who come here seeking assistance and support.

We, as franciscans, who strive to follow Christ in the footstep of St Francis, believe that our Lord has commanded us to do just that, i.e. to restore respect, dignity, and hope to every person as He did through the acts of healing the Gospel so that we could know that we are fully accepted by God, fully welcomed by him in our human condition. It was moving to see how the entire village show their solidarity the the staff and the boys at the Hurihanga in this difficult time, proving once again that we are all one family, one body of Christ, that we feel their pain and struggle and that they are not alone. That is also at the very heart of the Gospel and our mission as franciscan brothers is really to make people aware of the value they have in God’s eyes. “You are precious in my sight, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:4): these are the words I think of when we I see the photo of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro embracing the world. Since Easter morning, we know that God did not hesitate to give everything so that we would never forget what we are worth. We are one, we are precious and we experience this every day here at Te Ara Hou, which means the new way.