Take It From Us with Kent Johns

64 Episodes

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"Do you ever feel like there might be more?" Jemarl Paerata did

2026-10-0835:03

For nearly 20 years as a firefighter, Jemarl Paerata pushed the trauma to the back and drank to keep it there. But one day, after a cardiac arrest callout, he asked the boys in the truck, "Do you ever feel like there might be a little bit more?" The reckoning saw Jemarl give up heavy drinking, leave the fire service and start Te Kaiārahi out of Piha. Since 2022, thousands of rangatahi have come through his programmes — surfing, bush walks, cold water, breathwork, and the stories of Tāne Mahut...

Eman Ghandour: On being not Kiwi enough, not Arab enough

2026-10-0138:07

"You don't feel Kiwi enough for the Kiwis, but you don't feel Arab enough for the Arabs." Eman Ghandour was 10 when her family moved from Jordan to Dunedin. Growing up, she tried to get her "ratio" to 50/50 Kiwi and Arab, and it kept landing at 80/20. While at Otago Uni she lived as a Kiwi with her friends, then came home to Arab Muslim parents and a constant sense of guilt. Her mid-20s, she says, were the worst years. In 2021 she started a group chat for young ethnic women who were feeling t...

Jason Blyth: The boy who had to advocate for himself at nine years old

2026-09-2441:57

Jason Blyth was nine years old when he asked his psychiatrist a question no child should have to ask: why was he the one being brought in for treatment, when his mother was the one abusing him? Between the ages of two and fifteen, Jason saw around 20 different clinicians. He begged, repeatedly, to be taken away from a home where his own reports describe genuine fear for his life. Nothing changed. By eleven, he'd stopped asking. Jason Blyth’s story is a Hollywood epic of survival and redemptio...

The 4000 kiwi adults stuck living at home with Mum and Dad

2026-09-1725:53

Flynn Mitchell spent three years in a Dunedin university flat built for wheelchair users — accessible kitchen, accessible bathroom, full independence. Then he moved home to Auckland and lost all of it. Now he needs a carer just to wash his own dishes. He's not alone. Ray Finch, CEO of the Laura Ferguson Trust, says nearly 4,000 physically disabled adults across New Zealand are living with ageing parents, not by choice but because nothing accessible exists for them. With most of those parents ...

Sam Cox survived the car crash. Then he had to relearn everything he'd lost

2026-09-1028:18

On New Year's Eve 2022, Sam Cox went through the windscreen of a car doing over 100km/h down a gravel road outside Rangiora. His best friend Kaide, who was driving, didn't survive. Sam did — with a brain injury so severe it took him five months to even understand Kaide was gone. Now 19, Sam talks to Kent about memory loss, losing his old friend group, the dad he lost not long after and the mum he now calls his rock. He also opens up about the one thing keeping him going: the sense that he's b...

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