For Dulcinea Cooper of the Maori Evangelical Group in Auckland, the path to prison volunteering involved a lifetime of helping others. Here she shares her journey.

My earliest memories are of being fostered out to different members of the family. This was followed by my college years and a life spent living in a girls’ hostel with 29 others.

It was as a married woman with two daughters, living in my first home, that I opened my doors to care for others from broken homes or institutions. There were spells too spent caring for a Probation Hostel in View Road, Mount Eden and working at Owairaka (described back in 1959 as a ‘school for difficult boys’).

The biggest family I lived with was when I attended the Bible College of New Zealand for 3 years, graduating in 1972.

Soon it was off to Port Augusta in South Australia working among Australian Aborigines and running a hostel.

A return to New Zealand saw a return to caring for many disadvantaged people in Auckland and a 15 year stint in a hostel for Maori boys. In 1994, this led to the beginning of prison work at Auckland Prison in Paremoremo, New Zealand’s only specialist maximum-security prison for male prisoners. These days my volunteering work also takes in Mount Eden and Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility (ARWCF).

With 48 years of care giving behind me and into my seventies, I still help people in my home.

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