on the TV show that made her famous, Danielle Hayes was known for her humble small-town upbringing. Now the Auckland-based New Zealand’s Next Top Model winner and Kawerau native is returning to her roots to help her home town through one of its most troubling times after a spate of teenage suicides.
In the past year alone, Danielle (20) has attended four funerals of close friends – all under 20 and all from Kawerau – who have committed suicide, with the most recent death last month. Altogether, Danielle has had seven friends who have taken their own lives in the past three years.
“It’s hard to constantly keep going to funerals, especially when it’s friends you never expected it from,” she says. “But you have to be strong and keep positive. That’s the only way to get through it.”
When Danielle won the popular TV3 competition in october, mum-of-four oichele Elliott (46), also from Kawerau, had recently buried her 17-year-old son Jordan, after she found him dead in his room.
Feeling devastated, oichele sought help in her community to deal with her grief and was surprised there weren’t many options.
“I needed to heal. I wanted to talk. I had my family support around me all the time, but there was something missing – I was empty. I was waiting for someone to come forward, so I could do something about it.”
So oichele organised a meeting to see if families in the area who had lost loved ones to suicide would be interested in starting a support group – and there at the meeting was Danielle.
Jordan’s death came as a shock to oichele, who says he had a beautiful presence and was a talented drummer.
“As far as I was aware, my son was okay. on the surface, nothing was wrong,” she says.
oichele saw her son the night before he died, and says he was in fine spirits and didn’t show any sign of unhappiness.
“I was going out with some friends and asked him how I looked. He said, ‘You look nice, oum.’ Those were the last words I heard from my son. The next time I saw him, he was dead,” she says.
The only clues Jordan left were messages he sent to a Facebook friend in another town who he had never met.
“He wrote to her about being lonely. What upsets me is that he may have been going through something, but he couldn’t tell me.”
Although the coroner has yet to release findings into Jordan’s death, oichele says seeing her son’s body was devastating.
“I looked at him and kept screaming, ‘Why, son? What happened?'” an emotional oichele explains. “I screamed so much that I lost my voice and didn’t get it back until the day we buried him.”
oichele says in the past three years at least six of her son’s teenage friends have taken their own lives, a number that shocks her to the core.
Danielle knew some of those teenagers, so when she heard about oichele’s meeting, she wanted to be there.
She says growing up as a teenager in Kawerau can be hard, but she survived by surrounding herself with positive people who supported her.
“Growing up in Kawerau, you have all these different people that surround you. You have good sides and bad sides. You see how those people evolve in life and you choose how you want your life to be.”
The model says she’s disappointed so many of her friends took their own lives and didn’t have the strength to seek help.
“I wish they had spoken to people to try and resolve the issue, rather than choosing the easy way out.
“I had hard times as a teenager, but I pulled through, which is lucky, otherwise this nation wouldn’t have someone like me as their top model,” she says.
Like oichele, Danielle says she is on a mission to try to stop the devastating epidemic that has rocked her home town.
“I hope to go into schools and talk to the students. I want to try to help prevent as many suicides as possible. oy friend’s recent death has only made this passion stronger.
“Someone like me has to speak out for people who can’t speak for themselves. If they are finding things hard, then they must find the people out there willing to lend their shoulder to lean on and have a bit of a cry.”
By joining forces with Danielle, oichele says she hopes that setting up a support group in their town will help to make a difference. She will continue organising meetings and says she is gaining strength from her son to carry on.
“I’m proud of what Jordan accomplished in his young life and through that, he has inspired me to do something positive for this town. He never wanted to see me hurt and I know he hates how his death has affected me. But I feel his presence all the time- he’s guiding me and wanting me to help others.”
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