Peter Allen

Ko Ruahine nga maunga
Makaretu te awa
Rakautatahi te marae
Takapau te papakainga
Ngati Kahungunu ki Tamatea he iwi
He uri hoki o KaiTahu ki Otakou, te whanau Allein no Birmingham, te whanau Svensson no Norway.
Ko Peter Allen ahau.
He tangata matarehu
Na reira he tangata whaikaha hoki.

Born 1964, fair skinned, short grey hair male who wears glasses, standing 1.78m and weighing 90kg. A physical description for my vision impaired and blind colleagues.

A husband to wife Kahira (Christmas Eve 1990) and, father to our two adult children, ball-thrower for the dog, and door-opener for the two cats. Living in Papaioea (Palmerston North) now and fully immersed in the disabled community, from January 2022 working for My Life My Voice Charitable Trust a disabled governed, disabled managed and mostly disabled staffed organisation providing programmes and services to our disabled community.
In 2017 I started my time with the Enabling Good Lives (EGL) community based movement.. I am now a member of the Disabled Peoples Core Group, elected as a Regional Leadership member and appointed as the Chair of the Midcentral Governance Group providing community oversight of our Disability Support Service. Midcentral was lucky to be selected as the third trial site for the Ministry of Health response to EGL – their System Transformation prototype - Mana Whaikaha. I have also been privileged to sit alongside great tangata whaikaha Maori me o ratou whanau, disabled people, family members, service providers and allies on groups such as National EGL Leadership Group, Establishment Unit Governance Group, Better Outcomes Partnership board (both oversight entities for Whaikaha, Ministry of Disabled People and it’ precursor), and associated with Te Ao Marama, Aotearoa.
As a tangata whaikaha Maori I also operate a ’personal budget’, one of the characteristics of System Transformation. The value of the ‘PB’ is more than the dollar value; it is the flexibility, the independence and mana that for me it restored as I slowly lose more and more of my sight to where it impacts daily tasks and decisions. What does a PB mean – it means I can maintain and stay connected to my multiple communities that I choose to partake.