1 Sunday ` proudly brought to you by Mazda. Tonight on Sunday ` when two worlds collide. Two, three, four. ALL SING OPERA I became less and less interested in my own career and more interested in the kids around me that had that potential. Taylor was brought up with violence. I was always on edge, wondering if today was the day that he was gonna go too far. (HUFFS) Can his voice change his life? I know that has the capacity to` to heal. (SINGS OPERA) APPLAUSE It was one brief shot, and it connected a mother and her little boy with a Kiwi mum and her son on the other side of the world. I wanted to just have a go, see if we could make a difference. Captions by Kate Parkinson. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 Kia ora, I'm Miriama Kamo. The life of Taylor Wallbank reads like a scene from Once Were Warriors. He grew up in a violent home and endured physical abuse throughout his childhood. But Taylor's life changed when he meet a talented opera star with a gift for using music to change lives. Together, they've been on a remarkable journey, and Taylor's discovered the power of his voice in more ways than one. Here's Jehan Casinader. (SINGS OPERA) People see opera as something that the stale, pale, male feels passionate about. (LAUGHS) The stereotypical view of highbrow music, weird-sounding people. (LAUGHS) But in Hawke's Bay, opera means opportunity. Some of these teens are finding their voices after years of silence. I know that music has the capacity to` (SNIFFLES) to heal. I've never really talked about my story to anyone. I never thought that was interesting to anyone. Taylor Wallbank was raised in Flaxmere by a solo mum. It was basically a normal life, until my mother passed away. She went through a lot of stress with having to look after me and my brother. She... committed suicide. Taylor was just 5, and he was sent to live with a caregiver. That's when things started to go downhill. He says that was the beginning of a decade of physical abuse. It really affects you when you're that young. You're getting thrown across the room, or you're getting yelled at and stomped on. It's actually quite traumatising. The most stupidest reason I got a hiding was he didn't like the way I walked. I got in trouble for losing a sweater or something at school. He put his hands around my mouth and my nose. For a full minute, I was struggling to breathe. I was always on edge, wondering if today was the day that he was gonna go too far. Taylor's world was about to collide with a very different one. (HUFFS) < Did you know you had a voice? No, not at all. He saw an ad for a music class run by two opera stars. I just thought, 'Oh, this is something different. Why not try it?' We bring them in, train them up, teach them the language of the opera. They jump on stage, and they do it. One, two, three. ALL SING OPERA Jose and Anna have sacrificed their own careers to run this programme, and it's all for free. We're not asking them to bring a packet of biscuits. They don't have to dip into limited funds at home. We feed them. We transport them. To give someone that gift where they can leave all of their worries behind is huge. That's huge. My initial impression of Taylor was that he was pretty distant, and I found him very difficult to read. Music gave Taylor confidence and new mates. He could finally open up about his abuse to people like Anna. By this stage, I felt very maternal towards Taylor, so, mm, it was really hard to hear that. The lesson there is that none of us really have any idea of what's going on in anybody's life. We have students who attend the top private girls' schools in NZ, and then we have students from very low decile schools, from areas where parents are struggling. All of these kids have pressures and stresses that I never had when I was younger. Anna's life is a world away from Taylor's. I went over and studied in London and had a career in Europe for six years. She married Jose, a fellow opera singer. They came home to raise a family and created a much bigger one through opera. I've never really had an ongoing sense of hopelessness, and I think that a lot of these kids have that. You've got young people who are trying to process not just their own sense of hopelessness but the previous generation and the generation before that. When Anna met Taylor, he bore the emotional scars of the cruelty he'd faced. I never saw any type of affection or love. I just saw someone who was using me, really. He would always describe me as useless or thick. He even said that I should've just gone to a mental hospital. We're always assessing our worth. This is something that I did all my life as a singer. Am I good enough? Yeah, and do you care about me? You know, do you care about me? Anna wanted to give Taylor something he could be proud of. It's just saying, 'Here you go. You've got a voice in there. This is how you use it.' Two years ago, I never really understood music. I hated it actually. Now he's part of a world that was once so foreign. A lot of these people aren't what people stereotypically think they are, like highbrow, rich, kind of classy people. They're actually people who want to support you in your endeavours. I'm going to introduce to you Taylor Wallbank. So please give him a hand. APPLAUSE GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYS (SINGS OPERA IN ITALIAN) I couldn't believe how he lit up when he started singing. He's got the voice. The whole thing just came alive. It was awesome. I loved it. APPLAUSE Coming up ` the conversation that changed Taylor's life. Yeah, I'm proud of him. He just continues to amaze me. And he faces his biggest challenge yet. Don't be scared. You can't, sort of, stand there and storm off. You can't do that. The show must go on. 1 ALL: # Sing His praises. Sing His faith. # All of ye His glorious name. By the time he reached high school, Taylor already felt like a man. I never really thought that I had a childhood, and I've always thought to myself, 'I'm older than I should be.' While Taylor was developing his musical talents, he was trapped in an abusive home. Those times when I was feeling suicidal, I just felt there was nothing else for me to do in this life, and I didn't want to carry on. I wanted to send a message to him that this is your fault. So that's how bad it got. Uh, yeah. (SNIFFLES) I thought that I was never gonna make it through. I really needed to rethink what I wanted to do in life and how I was gonna go forward. One night, Taylor left home and found sanctuary in solitude. It was probably about 10.30 at night, and I found a church. I was never really a spiritual person, but at that time, I didn't really know what to do. I actually turned to faith. That was sort of my only motivation that I had besides my own willpower. He found the courage to open up to a man he trusted ` his canoe polo coach. He's such a positive young man. To find out that this sort of thing was going on in the background, I was surprised. Yeah, I was really surprised. I was really humbled, I suppose, that you shared that with me. I just thought I trusted you most with that info. Just for someone to call out for help, I think, is the key, because there's always people who would want to help you. Somewhere, deep down, believe that things can get better, because they can. With the help of his school, Taylor was able to move in with his nan. I feel safe now. I'm no longer depressed. Shall we go there? And he found a place in Anna and Jose's family too. Anna's like a bit of a motherly figure. Definitely makes me feel supported and cared for. It's parenting beyond your own home. I think if we all did a little bit of that, then our kids and our future would be a lot better off. READS: 'So he made a house with windows, and he landed the balloon on the grass.' At least I feel part of something. I never really felt like I was part of any family. Now Taylor knows he can be a role model. I reckon they see me as their, kind of, bigger brother. Their big brother that they never had. (LAUGHS) A big brother who's making his family proud. It is my pleasure now to present one of the highest awards within the school. That is, of course, the honours blazer to Taylor Wallbank. APPLAUSE One of the wonderful things about working with kids is that you get to watch them grow. INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC If you become, sort of, this independent, self-motivated person, you can achieve your goals. Apparently, my mother was a motivated person as well, so when I succeed, I always think, 'Oh, I must have got that from her or something.' Hello! Hi, Jave. Hi, Taylor. But on the day of his first solo in a full opera,... We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable up there. ...Taylor's nerves get the better of him. What's the worst that can happen? I don't think that being critical is helpful at all. Kids take their lives because of some comment that someone makes. Whatever you do later in life, it really doesn't matter, but you have the determination to say, 'I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do it well.' It's really really inspiring to see how someone as young as you has managed to achieve what you have achieved in the last three years. You need to be ambitious for your students. They're not going to be able to suddenly see this life unfolding in front of them. You've got to always throw that stone further than they could. Whoa, you got long eyelashes! In opera, you're taking on different personas and different roles. I'm not gonna swear cos there's a camera there. (LAUGHS) He can be someone else that is not defined by his experience but rather by the decisions he's making now. ALL CHEER Just a couple of years ago, Taylor could never have imagined a night like this. He's about to take centre stage, and everyone is counting on him. LIVELY PIANO MUSIC PLAYS It's incredibly humbling to see what has been the most extraordinary transformation in Taylor. # Come away, fellow sailors. Come away. Your anchors beweighing. # Time and tide... Some of the feelings I still have inside are always there. I don't think that those will leave me for a long time. # Tho' never intending to visit them more. But I'm no longer that child. I'm becoming a different person. # Tho' never, tho' never # intending to visit them more. # APPLAUSE You can escape a situation that is damaging you. It was a hugely brave step, but it's a step that anyone can take. Next year, Taylor will plant his feet on the world stage. He's heading to Italy to study opera. I see my life as a big opportunity. But Hawke's Bay will always be the place he found his voice. I hope that I can offer inspiration to other people who may have been in the same position as me. It's not the end of the line. When you think it is, you just keep pushing through. If you'd like to ask for help, as Taylor did, we've put some helpline numbers on our Facebook page. And if you'd like to donate to Anna's charity Prima Volta, those details are there too. Well, up next, it was a fleeting glimpse ` a Paraguay slum, a toddler with club feet ` but it was just enough for a Kiwi mum to reach out. I felt that, um, the world is perhaps a smaller place than we imagine, and maybe it's possible that we could find this little boy. Hola! Como estan? EMOTIONALLY: I don't know if he will ever understand how many people he's inspired, him and his family. 1 Welcome back. You could've easily missed it ` the moment that occurred during a story we brought you about a poverty-stricken town using garbage to create an orchestra. It was a fleeting glimpse ` a tiny toddler picking his way through a Paraguay rubbish heap on severely twisted club feet. But across the world, one Kiwi mum, living in Australia, did see that moment, and she picked up the phone. What happened next is extraordinary, as Denham Hitchcock reports. RUBBISH TRUCK RUMBLES, CLANKS This is how this story began ` a four-second shot of a 2-year-old boy struggling to walk in the slums of a far-off country. ROUSING CLASSICAL MUSIC It was shown in a story on a remarkable orchestra. ORCHESTRA PLAYS BEETHOVEN'S '5TH SYMPHONY' Children, born in a town built on a rubbish tip, playing instruments created from what we throw away. The orchestra now tours the world. These kids, born into poverty, are now playing for the rich and famous in Paris and London. APPLAUSE, WHISTLING Oh, this is going to make me dizzy. Former Miss Paraguay Fio Migliore was our translator. CHILDREN LAUGH There are streets garbage all over, houses made of wood or things that they found in the landfill. But, still, I say it's a magical town. And along the way, we met this little guy. I gave him a tiny koala. I didn't think I'd see him again. But I was wrong. That one shot would connect a mother and her little boy with a mum in Australia and her son here on the other side of the world. While that story itself had a great impact on everybody, I noticed in the background this little boy walking with what looked like untreated club feet. Club foot is a condition where the feet are twisted at the ankles. I felt (SIGHS) it just doesn't need to be that way, and there's treatment available. I wanted to just have a go, see if we could... make a difference. Lana Mayes knew it could be fixed. She knew because her son, Zach, was born with the same condition. Club foot is a very common birth defect. It affects one in 750 births. Zach is lucky because he lives in Australia. While treatment is relatively cheap, it's still out of reach for those living in poverty. Over one million children live with the disability of untreated club foot worldwide. Many children that don't receive treatment lead a life of poverty, illiteracy and abuse. In Sydney, Zach was treated on the spot. A plaster cast, then special boots that have to be worn for four years. Whoa! Can't even get out. Zach's boots finally came off only a few months ago. CALVIN HARRIS' 'FEEL SO CLOSE' Hey! I felt if we hadn't had access to this incredible treatment that we have available here to us in Australia, then that's how my son would be walking, and that's when I thought it doesn't need to be this way. # There's no stopping us right now. # Lana wanted to help the boy from Paraguay, but how to find him? I felt that, um, the world is perhaps a smaller place than we imagine, and maybe it's possible that we could find this little boy. Emails, phone calls. We even asked Fio to help. Finally, in a tiny, roadside shack,... Hola! Como estan? ...we found him. < (SPEAKS SPANISH) His name is Toby. Lana started a website to raise money for treatment, and the donations rolled in. First came the plaster. Then six weeks later, another trip to hospital. < MAN GROWLS (GIGGLES) (GIGGLES) It's time for the plaster to come off. And the hard part begins. The boots, which will be part of his life for the next four years. Very proud. Very happy. (EMOTIONALLY) I don't know if he will ever understand how many people he's inspired, him and his family. Treatment will transform his life. Not only will he be able to run and play, but he'll be able to attend school, earn a living and lead a productive life. All the way the other side of the world. Toby may be half a world away, but thanks to the internet,... So, I'm Lana, and this is` this is Zachary. Hi, Lana. Hi, Zach. How are you? ...they can see each other for the first time. This is Tobias, with Angel, his little brother. We're gonna show` We show Tobias. Look. When Zach was a little baby, he wore these boots. Zach. Hello, Zach. Look at him. Tobias` Tobias also has the same boots. UPLIFTING MUSIC New boots. New friends in Australia. A new future. Humans reaching out to humans. Just goes to show how small the world really is. (GIGGLES) Oh, so true. Well, Lana tells us that, because of the story, they've raised enough money to completely cover Tobias' treatment and have now set up a clinic in Nepal for children with untreated club feet. If you'd like to help, we have details on our Facebook page. Well, that's our show for tonight. Thanks for joining us this evening. We'll see you next week. Nga mihi nui, hei kona.