Black Fern Renee Wickliffe has shared how rugby “saved her life” while visiting inmates at a South Auckland women’s prison.
Wickliffe along with other members of the women’s national sevens and 15s rugby sides paid Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility a visit yesterday to share the nation’s game and inspire the inmates through their personal stories.
Wickliffe opened up about her past and told the inmates about her relationship with rugby saying it: “pretty much saved my life”.
“I think it was cool to come here and share our story as well and have some of the other girls share their stories as well so hopefully they got inspired by what we had to say today,” Wickliffe told Te Karere.
Among the famous faces visiting the prison with Wickliffe was star back Portia Woodman.
“When I got told I was going to be coming to the prison I was a little bit nervous,” Woodman said.
“Once I got in there and saw the girls and playing alongside them playing the drill…they’re just like us. They’re like my cousins that I have up home, you know, we’re whānau.”
While Māori women make up around seven per cent of the population in New Zealand, they make up more than half of the women prison population.
It’s hoped that rugby can motivate them to change.
“To have the girls come in, the wāhine come in it makes us feel normal. Although we’re prisoners it just makes us feel like there’s something else to look forward to when we get out of here,” one inmate told Te Karere.
Another inmate said: “I was feeling like a little bit down today, but they just boosted me like you know there’s more things on the other side of the wall.”
Woodman said visiting the prison showed her a different side of those serving time in prison.
“Hopefully they can somehow see that they can be in the same position as us and hopefully pursue whether rugby or whatever is that they dream of.”
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