Growing up Māori at Gloriavale: Valiant Overcomer's story | MATA Reports | RNZ

Ajouté : 2026-05-17

[00:00:15]growing up and seeing these two mountains and there's a little gap in the middle and I'm thinking, what's through that gap? Is there another whole world I don't even know exists out there?

[00:00:32]I left Gloral when I was 14 and when I was 19 I was given the opportunity to reconnect with my father which then led me to want to learn Ariel and that has now led me into wanting to return up here.

[00:00:55]Anna overcome and this is my story.

[00:01:11]Valiant Overcomer was born and raised at Gloria. He's the ninth of 12 siblings born to au mother and Parki hera father.

[00:01:23]I've always known that I'm Maldi. Our mother, I cannot remember her speaking it, but I I knew I knew we were moldi.

[00:01:30]Whether it is we had slightly different skin color to everyone else. You know, >> we're a family people. Our >> Valiant's roots in Gloria run deep. His tower joined when leader Neville Cooper known as Hopeful Christian was based at cast near in the 1990s. Cooper moved his followers to Hopiri on Taipoene. The overcomers were one of just a handful of faro maldi.

[00:02:00]I remember sitting at the breakfast table. I'd be 11, 12 years old and hopeful openly says that Maldi Indian these are dirty people. He's putting us a level below him below or below um white white people. He didn't say these words, but this is the intention. You know, I'm getting the message. We're getting the message that we're secondass citizens.

[00:02:27]I'm not sure what he expected with a place like Gloraba, but my family, they did really well and they also got treated the worst. There was a vibe, an unspoken vibe that we were the underdogs. In 1995, hopeful Christian was found guilty and jailed for the sexual abuse of young people at Gloria.

[00:02:56]Despite being sentenced to 5 years imprisonment, he was released after just 11 months and returned to the community.

[00:03:05]>> What was the relationship between your faro and hopeful Christian Neville Cooper? hopeful. From my observation as a kid, he really really liked my faro and he really really disliked my faro.

[00:03:19]It was this thing where he in his mind he had blockages against um people that have skin color. But also what he could see within my faro is people like my older brother who could run that place. But that's why my brother left because they wanted to make him a leader. And he said, "Okay, cool."

[00:03:43]And then he said, "Actually, I don't agree with this, this, this, this, this, this, and this." And so that's the process that happened.

[00:03:52]>> That process saw Valiant's older brother, Elijah, and his wife Rosie become the subject of a long-running campaign to break the couple apart after Elijah began to challenge the leadership over abuse within the community.

[00:04:07]Eventually, they left and it wasn't long before Valiant had questions of his own.

[00:04:14]>> Well, as you develop, whatever situation you're in, we all have access to our conscience which can tell us when things are off and on. And within that in glory I just I knew at at the age of 10 11 that leaders that are coming into my room. So the leadership SE shepherds and servants, the SS, um these people that are coming into my room that are servants and shepherds and speaking with my family and one, why do they have the right to walk into our space?

[00:04:56]First of all, it's the tiniest room. You know, we have a small little room for our own family. These people think they have the right to come in here and start to talk to certain individuals in my family. my dad, he opens the door for them. My dad doesn't stop them from entering the room.

[00:05:12]Why do they have that right? And so that's was when I started to de develop this understanding of what's going on.

[00:05:18]>> How did people exercise their power in there?

[00:05:22]>> So I can still remember it clear as day, 12 years old. I'm walking through a building. I've got a pack on my back.

[00:05:29]Some there's a m particular person up there. He might have been 27, 28 at the time, married, three kids. He needs some kind of credibility in this place. He needs to start climbing the hierarchy.

[00:05:39]So he's like, "Ah, here's a kid. I'm going to search his pack." So he searches my pack, confiscates a knife, confiscates a jacket or a piece of clothing I'm not meant to have, you know, and this is this is this whole to get him into a higher position within that hierarchy system. Um I remember seeing my siblings getting Sunday comes or as they call it the first day the Lord's day and this is where they have their SS meetings and I watched my family from you know I'm a young kid watching my siblings that are in their teenagers getting taken to these meetings and then they come out and then 3 4 hours later they're just distraught.

[00:06:17]You kind of see them going through this whole process of trauma from this meeting they've gone through, which could be compared to hell on a psychological level.

[00:06:31]>> Valiant says those meetings were just one of many ways Gloria's leadership maintained control over their flock.

[00:06:42]>> Another was the return of Jesus.

[00:06:45]We used to sit around on the Sunday night meetings, hopefuls walk around a circle saying, "It could be now, folks."

[00:06:51]And we sit in silent for 5 minutes waiting for Jesus to come back. While downstairs, I can smell the Irish stew cooking. And I'm thinking, "We've been in this meeting 3 hours. Why don't I just walk down, have a feed, come back, and then go up to Jesus?"

[00:07:05]A lot of them have a false sense of hope, which is, "Oh, well, we're going to the Lord's Jesus is going to come back."

[00:07:12]They didn't buy feed for their cows one time because Jesus is coming back. Yeah.

[00:07:19]You know, when things get really um tight and under pressure in there, they start to lean onto the Christ is coming back, so it's all good. And I'm unsure.

[00:07:30]It's almost like you put yourself through a torture chamber. You say, "I'm I am a warrior on this earth suffering, so my life in heaven's going to be great." This is the forado.

[00:07:43]>> By the time Valiant was 14, he had achieved NCAA level 1, 2, and three and was working up to 100 hours a week on the community farm. He didn't realize it yet, but his time at Gloria was about to come to an end.

[00:08:02]When I was 14, went into a meeting with two of my older sisters because of something we had helped with with Afano leaving. I remember them asking me a question in that meeting. I then reply to them and within my reply, half the room is laughing at me. See, this is a manipulative tactic. You've got men from the age of 35 to 82 in this and that these men are laughing at you. They're making you feel extremely small in the room. They're making you feel like you've what am I doing? I must be completely wrong.

[00:08:36]But in the same feeling, I'm also feeling like what's going on? I'm kind of figuring out their programming and their manipulative systems in real time. In this meeting, this particular meeting, one of my older sister walks into the meeting, whispers to hopeful and says, Elijah's here. And because he's deaf, he says, "Speak up, love." And so he's sitting on the other side of the circle in this meeting. And she says, "Elijah's here." By this time, I'm distressed as a 14-year-old kid. I'm going, I don't know how I can handle this. I'm crying. These I'm just getting freaking bullied in here in this meeting. I'm over it.

[00:09:26]I hear my brother's turned up on the property just randomly on this day. He's turned up and he's driven right in.

[00:09:32]He's, by the way, he's not allowed to do that at this time. He's not allowed on that property in their eyes.

[00:09:38]So, I look at my two sisters, a few of the leaders leave to go and most likely try and get them off the property, whatever that looks like. And then I look at my sister, I'm like, I think I'm going to go see him. And they looked like, "If you go, if you walk out those doors, we're coming with you."

[00:09:58]Which is exactly what we do. I see my dad on the way over. I said, "Hey, Dad, I'm going to see Elijah." He's in full panic mode, like, "Hey, we got to calm this whole situation down. Ela needs to get out of here." Kind of thing.

[00:10:11]He says, "You're not going, son." And I said, "Okay, that's fine. I won't go then. I'm I'm 14. I won't I won't be leaving with him." I walk over. I see like by then there's about 70 people standing around him, you know, guys saying, "We don't want you here. You need to leave." You know, just starting to it's starting to crank up a little bit. Like, you know, getting a crowd around. Um, he then looks at me. As soon as I look at him, I just start crying. I'm like, "Oh, bro, I'm just getting hammered at this meeting." He says, "Val, get in the car. Like, at least you're going to be safe sitting in the back of my truck."

[00:10:47]So, I hop in the truck. Hopeful comes out and he says, "If you want to go, whoever wants to go can go." And I'm like, "Ah, perfect. My dad's decision just gotten overridden by Hopeful. This is me. I'm out of here." So, I go and grab literally fill up a pack of clothes and hop in the truck.

[00:11:09]10 minutes later, we're driving out the drive. The two sisters that were in the meeting with me, they're also in the back of the truck.

[00:11:16]That's how we left.

[00:11:26]Driving down that drive was probably one of the hardest and slowest drives I've ever been on. It was very emotional.

[00:11:36]Starting to feel what have we just done?

[00:11:39]We're just walking out from the place that we've been raised. We're going to drive across that bridge at the end of the property through the gate that says once you drive out that gate, you're going to hell.

[00:11:50]And we just we've made this decision and we've in a way would rather go to hell than being in there at this point in time.

[00:12:06]>> Huge.

[00:12:07]>> Yeah.

[00:12:10]Slam me up to hell.

[00:12:25]Instead of being signed up to hell, Valiant was enrolled in a country school in Flei where his brother Elijah was running a farm and raising his Tamariki with wife Rosie. So she's just had their fifth child and so we're living in the house. I'm I go to school. Um I'm literally in school within 2 weeks I think country school.

[00:12:49]In my head I'll finish finish my qualifications but my one of my oldest my oldest sister who's already left a few years earlier she tells me you need to go to school. You need to kind of need social work. You need to start this whole process of living in the outside world. That country school they just wrapped around me. They really looked after me. The naughty boys actually were the ones that were my closest mates cuz they just they had my back. It didn't matter what's going on, they've got me.

[00:13:18]While Valiant and his sisters started to build a life outside Gloria, their parents and five siblings remained inside, but their faro bond would prove unbreakable.

[00:13:31]>> We decided we need to go see our mom.

[00:13:33]It's been 3 months. Um, we turn up in Gloryville one night. They get on to us really fast. They they stop us halfway up the road and within about half an hour there's probably 40 people just a people blockade and we've actually got gifts for them and for our mother.

[00:13:56]And at this time we sit there for about 5 hours at the gate talking with them comm community, you know, whatever is going on. And then we just hop, we all hop in the car. So there's me, my two sisters that are left with Elijah, his wife, and we say, "Right, we're just going to stay here, and we're just going to sit tight, and then in about half an hour, we're going to all get out of the car, and we're just going to start walking through them. We're going to take this stuff to our We're going to take this stuff to our mom. We're going to see our mom. So, they're not letting our mother come down to the gate where we are. So, my brother's got these gifts. He starts walking with them. This little um short fella comes out hot fiery as and just smacks the stuff out of his hands. And so that just flicks something on my brother. I've never seen him before. He says, "No one's stopping me. I'm going up. See my mom." And he just starts walking through these guys.

[00:14:52]Yeah. I think it took about five people to they finally get my brother, drag him back. After that experience, I think we they realized we're going to be a problem. We're not going to go away. And so the next day, they allowed us to um my mother and father to come down and talk with us. As soon as our mom walked across the gate, we grabbed her and we were just like, we just we just need to sit with her. And they were kind of getting on edge like we need to protect her. I was like, she don't she try and protect our mother from us, you retards.

[00:15:21]But yeah, that's what that was like.

[00:15:24]>> How is your mom for mama?

[00:15:28]>> So, >> half her tamariki are out and the other half is still in. What was that like for her?

[00:15:34]>> You're right. Seven out, five in.

[00:15:37]I'm sure at this time she's just going through a process, you know, like I've just had three cuz she's never had three children leave at the same time. She's had one leave, the next leave, the next leave, her son and their family leave.

[00:15:49]this time she's had three just bang gone. And so she's really I'm sure she's in this whole process of you know how am I going to look after my family when I can only look after half of them in there and I can't even barely have access to the other half outside.

[00:16:04]>> But they wouldn't be apart for long. A serious injury to one of Valiant's sisters created an unexpected opportunity for the overcome to reunite.

[00:16:16]Valiant's parents were permitted to care for her in a house of grounds and for the first time the siblings could come and go freely to see them. Within months they were ready to leave Gloria for good to arro.

[00:16:34]>> What makes your faro so tight?

[00:16:38]>> Ah the the the backbone of our faro which is our mother. Um I if you sent that lady with a one-way ticket to Egypt within a week she'd have a place to stay. She'd have a job. She'd have a job before she got off the plane. She'd have about 20 mates that all know her address.

[00:17:01]Like this lady is just a very nothing's a problem. I don't think I've ever had a problem with her in my life. So that this just this unconditional love. She's our Jesus. She's our unconditional love portal to our family. And so because you've got this portal of unconditional love. Well, we're pretty inseparable because if there's um well, she'll just just puts a bit of love on it and then let it let it sort itself out. She was born and raised in uh Tiwi P. And so from this perspective, she grew up in Tia Maldi. And so the things that she would have learned in that as well as in her blood. I'm sure this is why we have been able to keep communicating as a faro and working together.

[00:17:56]>> The entire overcome a farano are now out of Gloria. But for valiant freedom came with its own challenges. He moved to Australia for work and like many young people began experimenting with alcohol and drugs. But in 2019 during a trip back to Altereroa, a new path began to emerge.

[00:18:20]>> I see an email from saying that they have a heoyaku.

[00:18:31]Um, and then I see this and I'm like, "Oh, you'll sign up for that. I'll go do that. Then I'll go back to Australia."

[00:18:36]So, we meet up in Queens. I meet this guy, Kah. I'm like, "Bro, this guy is like the man. This is like my first, >> yes, I've got moldy mates, but he's actually living a moldy life. He's on the fenoa. He's running co-papa."

[00:18:52]And by night one, I'm like, "Okay, I've got to be vulnerable. I've actually got to communicate on this cop. What's going on? And so things start to stir inside of me and I start this this warning of what is this maldi? This is my papa. But what does this even mean? Night two, I just started opening up in that circle of wanakov.

[00:19:22]Just it's literally just the why are you here question?

[00:19:27]And because that question I'm asking myself, why am I here? I don't even know why I'm here. I don't even know what's going on. Why do I feel love? Why am I?

[00:19:34]And then I just start crying when I'm speaking. I'm like far out. I've I haven't been in a space that I've been able to sit there and just express myself like that. I've never in my life been in that space. And so that was the start of my journey in >> Taldi.

[00:19:55]Ah.

[00:19:57]Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:00]And in this in Mai and Mai and on this hide is is I can see so many correlations. I can understand what's going on in certain um locations, certain focal I had as a kid. I'm going, "Oh, I'm starting to understand this whole thing. What's going on? I'm starting to get closer to my life purpose or or walking in my life purpose. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:33]Part of that purpose has been reconnecting with Gloria.

[00:20:48]I have a relationship with the pheninoa with the phenopi ninoakio.

[00:20:59]I have communications with people in there that I see beneficial to our success up here. As for a little bit of context, we're up the valley.

[00:21:11]We're we're 10 minutes up the road from Gloryville. Um, just on a basic level of wanting to work with our neighbors, you know, why would I go to a workshop an hour drive away when I can go up there and use and pay them for fixing our stuff? Why would I use a butcher down in Hookie Ticker when I can just go up the road, 10 minutes up the road, and uh either use their facility or work with them? So, so that's my relationship right now with Gloria is a working relationship. Tell us your concerns about the way and the hing of the people that are still there >> on a gray day. It's pretty gray up there from my experience because that just it's it can be really hard up there for people to even have hope for the future.

[00:21:56]What are they hoping for? You know that they're starting to lose the whole vision. When we were kids, you know, Saturday night, we were all out working together, having working bees, having fun, have a big kite together. It was a good time. they don't really do those things anymore, you know, and so that the spirit of actually what that place is is seems to be deteriorating.

[00:22:16]>> Is that a concern?

[00:22:18]>> It definitely it is a concern. Yeah.

[00:22:20]Because why why live um life under some kind of subconscious tyranny and also living a low quality living lowquality life in the air. And then you've got people out on the outside that want to see that place flatten to the ground and you know a dirt a dirt paddic left.

[00:22:45]And I think that's a concern as well because yes they are wanting to destroy things that absolutely should not go on like people living that close. We having continual sexual abuse problems in there.

[00:23:01]That's a big problem that's got to change. Do you have aroha for the faro who remain at Gloria Vale?

[00:23:08]>> Yeah, absolutely. They're my people. And what I mean by that is from those people is I learned these skills that is 14y old. I can um run a small uh dairy farm.

[00:23:19]I can build a shed. I can drive a tractor no problem. I can um slaughter an animal from pasture to plate. And when I was learning those skills from those people, I know that it was in love and we operated in love. It's just all the other things. It's all the other things that actually are quite simple to change, but we have to surrender to the fact that we've gotten something wrong here along the way and we need to change. We need to make dramatic change.

[00:23:57]There's been big changes for Valiant 2.

[00:24:00]He's now married and he and his wife Jagger have two tamahin. He says becoming a father has given him a deeper appreciation for what the Wahin and his faro endured.

[00:24:13]>> Looking at my sisters and mother and the way they were treated um bottom bottom of the food chain woman. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:23]Absolutely.

[00:24:24]>> What was that like as a brother and a son?

[00:24:27]They're lucky I left when I was 14. Cuz if I was 16 and I knew how to use these fists, yeah, it ain't going to end well.

[00:24:41]Hopeful Christian died in 2018, but his legacy of abuse lived on. Last year, former leader Howard Temple pleaded guilty to 12 charges involving nine girls and women. He's one of several Gloria members convicted of sexual abuse or related offenses. Police say up to 138 potential victims have been identified. The community is now led by Steven Stanfast, but questions remain about whether real change is possible.

[00:25:14]What are the changes that could take place to ensure that abuse is stamped out at Gloria now and in the future?

[00:25:23]When I look at history, I don't know if I've found a system that has been destroyed from the outside.

[00:25:31]So to change, it must be it must be changed from within. Just for a system to change, it needs to be changed from within.

[00:25:38]>> Are you willing to go back in?

[00:25:42]>> Yeah, absolutely.

[00:25:44]>> Yeah, I I would absolutely be willing to go back in there. Now, operating under their rules, absolutely not.

[00:25:55]operating under the law, the LE. Yeah, absolutely. And I will say this, I don't think coming under governmental system is any better whatsoever. Now, a Tik Kakamaldi perspective and operating under Tik Kongi. Yeah. I think I think that's a looking at that it's a safe option for people both in there and people that wouldn't would like to live there. Yeah.

[00:26:22]It's been 11 years since Valiant Overcomer left Gloria Val. Jagger is studying Theel Mai at Tananga Orokoa and Valiant is working on a farm near Hopi.

[00:26:34]Valiant says he'll never turn his back on the community he grew up in. Instead, he believes the best way forward is to keep the door open.

[00:26:45]There's people in there that see the oneway bridge at the end of the property. There's two gates like this and they open like that and they close.

[00:26:54]You can leave but you can't come back.

[00:26:57]And there's people that have left that have that ficardado. I'm not allowed to go back there. It's been programmed into them. And then there's people in there that see the gates another way. They swing inwards which is people allowed to join but we can never leave.

[00:27:12]And so I think what a a healthy relationship with Gloral and the outside world is when we have we we we spoil the hinges and the gates are going like this. That's what we need interaction that isn't restricted. And I'm not talking about um mandatory interaction which is what they now have through government entities you know health work health and safety those um you know more but you know like people and children that have grown up there that can return people in there that would like to move on just a bit more of an easier process and it is getting easier and it is getting better but it must keep going.

[00:27:55]It's okay to be that out out of the box thinking. And yeah, hold on to that.

[00:28:05]Hold on to that way of thinking. Don't let it be programmed out of you.

[00:28:29]Kiqueech.

[00:28:58]are There's Taki.