Former drug dealer Levi Tuiavii is forging a new life helping prisoners battle addiction.

The full-time worker volunteers 30 hours a week supporting offenders and delivering food parcels to poverty-stricken families. “I put quite a lot of my time into helping other people because before, I was poisoning families as a gang member and a drug dealer,” he says. “I had to turn things around by giving back to the community.”

Levi graduated in March from the NZ Certificate in Health and Wellbeing (Social and Community Services) (Level 4) with a strand in Mental Health and Addiction Support at Royal Oak campus. “I wanted to learn more about mental health especially about the effects of drugs, what it does to your body and how it can destroy lives. Future Skills Academy has opened my eyes to so many opportunities and I have realised that Mental Health and Wellbeing covers so many areas, not just drugs and alcohol.”

The warehouse and distribution controller pays for an 0800-help line so inmates can call him anytime. “I’m working alongside them with a strategy plan, a safety plan for when they come away from jail.” Levi, 45, helps those serving time, and ex-offenders who are transitioning to recovery homes and rehabilitation centres. He supports a group of deportees from Australia through his church, Victory Outreach, and gives moral support to young churchgoers from broken homes.

As a child, Levi found himself in a very different set of circumstances, facing a tough upbringing in Mangere East. “I was born into a gang,” he says. “All my family members are still gang members and growing up, you have no choice. I faced life threatening challenges and obstacles.” At the age of six, Levi suffered trauma which sent him spiralling downhill. This led to taking narcotics to numb the mental anguish. "At the age of nine, I was introduced to weed, then to alcohol," he says. "At 14, I was given a patch, started selling drugs and getting into the criminal underworld. Cocaine and the other drugs started to come in and things got a bit more intense," Levi says. 

“When I was in my 30s, I came to realise enough was enough.” He went to a series of rehabilitation programmes to break the cycle of drug addiction, and abandoned gang life. “I fought my own demons and am still alive to tell my story with my head screwed on, moving forward and never going back to the old me,” Levi says. “I’ve changed my life around and have given my life to God.”

The former high school dropout says he doubted he would ever achieve a tertiary qualification and is proud of how far he has come. “Future Skills Academy opened up a lot of doors and it encouraged me to be more mindful of people. Before the course, I was too straight up and would say it how it is. I didn’t care if it hurt people but now, I do. My great tutor, Dushmanta, inspired me to want to learn more, and explained things in a way that made sense. I would recommend anyone go to his class.”