October 27, 2024 • 13 mins
Gumboot Friday returns this week on 1st November, as communities come together to raise awareness for youth mental health around the country.
This year’s event involves the auctioning of the Hope Home, built and donated by Fowler Homes, with the proceeds going back into I Am Hope.
It comes as founder Mike King had his custom e-bike stolen from him during his I Am Climate ride around the country to raise awareness for youth climate anxiety, which has been returned to him in Tauranga.
Mike King joined Tim Beveridge to discuss more.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks b Follow
this and our wide range of podcast now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Comboot Friday returns this week on the first of November,
so just a few days away, as communities come together
to raise awareness for youth mental health across the country.
This year's event involves the auctioning of the Hope Home,
built and donated by Fowler Homes, with all the proceeds
going back into I Am Hope and Mike King is
(00:39):
the founder as we all know, and he is with us. Mike,
good morning, Jim.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
How about you.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm pretty good.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Firstly, I had a few texts coming and telling me
and I made the news. You've you've had your bike,
you had your bike stolen and what will you just
tell us? What have you been doing on that bike?
Because it's not just a story about man loser's bike,
is it.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
No. So I've been riding an Upto two by two
electric motorbikes from or to Capriano, down the West coast
to Bluff and I'm heading home up the east coast.
I'm currently in total I'm not raising awareness of the
impact of climate change is having on young people's mental health.
(01:23):
We did a research paper after kids were raising it
with me in schools, and the research came back and
said that sixty percent of young people lists the climate
as their number one anxiety. So it's that I was
going to dotionally about. I'm a boomer, I didn't really
(01:43):
care about the environment, and more importantly, I was I
was one of those people that couldn't stand environmentalists because
they would always point the finger of us boomers and
go to your vault, it's your vault, and I made
it personal. Yeah. Actually, now it's about the kids.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So you're basically raising awareness or is that's it's an
awareness thing? Is it a funding thing? Sorry I missed
that bit of voice.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
No, no, no, no, no, it is totally. At the women's
raising exercise, I've stopped at twenty seven towns so far,
have have community talks with people. I have climate change
people with me at each of the stops, talking about
different things around the climate. Nothing. The key thing that's
(02:33):
missing from this whole debate is hope. We're constantly being
told what the problem is, but no one's talking about
some of the things they give our young people some hope.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, actually, I think that's that's right. It's always about
you are naughty, bad people, bad people. But it's like
what we yeah, yeah, hey, so are you traveling on
your how many people are you traveling with?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
So I have one man in an elliptic van and
we've had more battery and resty with the van than
we have with the.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Bottom the So the bike's actually it's not an electric
bike in terms of you're peddling as well. It's an
electric motorbike.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
It's an electric motorbike the tops out of fifty kilometers
an hour. It's governed and you can't make up time.
So if you're going up a hill at ten kilometers
an hour, you can't make it. It'll just tap out
of fifty k going down the other side. So I'm
averaging around anywhere between twenty two and thirty three kilometers
(03:34):
an hour. So you get to see a lot of
the country.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's not as exciting as I was hoping. Does the
van drive either ahead of your behind you flash outs
like saying watch out.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
No, no, no, no, no no. We would never do that,
it would cause too much disruption. So his job is
to just get to the next town and charge of
this van, and he carries spares and stuff like that,
so he's just there as a support vehicle. I've had
two punches so far and that's the only issue have had.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I guess you're not traveling on motorways, am. I'm going
to stop banging on about the bike. But I'm quite
intrigued by the by the trip because open ride at
fifty k sounds dangerous.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, I travel on the inside of the white line
between the single and the white libe and the road
and it is very, very safe. And yes, I have
driven down a couple of motorays and guess what, it
is safer on the motorways than it is on someone
else state highways. But everyone's ready, respectful. Everyone knows I'm
(04:39):
dressed like a traveling orange tone, so people didn't see me.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I'm sure if somebody toots you there probably Oh hell no,
I just tooted a Mike King. Pretend it's a friendly too.
By the way, what were you afraid of when you
were growing up? Because for me, we were petrified that
the bomb was going to go off and that was
going to be it?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Was it? I wish, I wish that was what I
was scared of. I was always scared of not fitting them.
That was my biggest fear. So I was one of
those people that morphed into a thousand different characters. I
turned to the person I thought you wanted me to
be so I would fit in. So I kind of
(05:22):
lost myself very young and didn't find myself again soil
I was nearly fifty years old.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Well, you know, I think you're probably not alone in
that front. Actually, I think it takes us all a
while to gra up, doesn't it. Hey, yeah, yeah, good,
only say let's we've got gumboot Friday coming up?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Actually help, I guess because you know you've been funded
by the government. Now, does that shift the focus on
the whole gun boot Friday fundraising? Because have you got
enough money and it's more about awareness or are you
still seeking people to deep into.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Their pockets it's fund raising. You see, there's this perception
that's that's been put out there that I have twenty
four million dollars, that Christopher came around to the house,
dropped off twenty four million dollars and rode off into
the sunset. And it's really impacted our charity because people
(06:16):
think I have got twenty four million traditional funders a
lot of trust don't give us any money anymore. So
the fact is the government gave the Ministry of Health
twenty four million dollars and we paid the monthly bill
to the counselors. We've paid the bill and then we
(06:36):
hand the receipts over to the Ministry and they give
us back the money. Monthly capped it five hundred thousand dollars,
so anything over five hundred thousand we have to pay. Now.
The thing that the issue that we've got at the
moment is we're keeping it just under five hundred thousand
a month at the moment. But I've got five hundred
(06:59):
and fifty chounces on my platform. I've got five hundred
and eighty on a waiting list. So this nonsense that
Andrew Little Labor put out that there weren't enough councilors,
there's always bollocks. So I've got all of these counters.
I am now putting on one hundred and fifty starting
next week, and that's going to take that's going to
(07:21):
take the bill up. So you know, we we do
need money, and one hundred percent of that money will
go to the counselors. We don't clip the ticket.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Mike remind us what is gumboot Friday and how it works.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So gun boot Friday is today where we encourage people
to wear gun boots to work, where their gun boots
around the house, where the gun boots to school to
let the kids who are who are walking through life
with depression know that there are people out there that
(07:56):
are thinking about them. And that is a fun way
to raise awareness for young people who are struggling with
depression and putting on gun boots. You know, it's a
metaphor having depressions like walking through MUDs. So let's for
one day walk through mud with our kids and raise
money for counsels.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And so the actual that's the I am Hope, isn't it?
And that's basically it works by funding counseling sessions for
kids as they need it.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Correct. So the im Hope Foundation and gum Boot Friday
are two separate entities and all money raised for gum
Boot Friday goes directly to the counselors, goes into the key.
We bang directly to the councilors, and we pay all
the admin, the upkeep, and the wages out of the
Iron Hope Foundation.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
How is new Zealand's mental health looking at the moment,
are we improving it at all? What are you watching?
What are you seeing?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
No, it's not improving. I think our focus is there's
too much on the crisis end. For example, if one
hundred kids go into hospital with a mental health issue
to A and E, only two of them get seen,
and we are relying on our health professionals to decide
(09:12):
which two get seen, and so we're always pushing towards
the crisis in now imagine The easiest way to describe
to Zone's mental heart from imagine imagine mental health is
a cake. The bottom tier of the cake is anxiety.
Sev of all mental health issues coming through Gunbup Friday
(09:37):
are associated with anxiety. The second tier of the cake
is depression, which stands the reason if you are anxious
long enough it it's depressing. The third tier of the
cake is stress, and the fourth tier is really interesting.
It's cupcakes, lots and lots of cupcakes. You've got you know,
you have bipolar, you'll have drugs, you'll have alcohol, vapings
(10:01):
on there, all of these little things. And I think
one of the issues that we've got is where for
too long we focus on on the cupcakes. For example,
vaping is a big thing in you know, at the moment,
So it allows governments to say we're going to have
the vaping rate, Well, you're halfing a cupcake. If we
(10:23):
have the anxiety rate, we half the problem. But the
problem with mental health is the anxiety, the depression, and
the stress. That requires generational change. And politicians don't have generations.
They have three year period so it's pretty hard.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, I mean, what would your advice be to kids
in the early stages, or how would you intervene with
anyone within your sort of sphere of influence to stop
them going on that journey towards the cupcakes as you
call it.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
I never ever give kids advice. My advice is to
parents and adults, listen to your kids. Stop criticizing their
every move. You know, our kids, I'm from school. I'll
tell you about five things that happen their day, four
amazing ones bad. What are we focused on? We're always
focusing on the bad. And what we think we're saying
(11:16):
to our kids is you're a great kids, kid, but
you must do better. You can do better. I love you,
but you can do better. The message our children are hearing.
No matter what I do, I'm never going to be
good enough. Also, stop telling your kids to stop crying
and stop being angry, and stop telling the weather to
stop raining or the wind to stop blowing. These are
(11:38):
all emotions. You know, the worst advice people give their
kids or say in front of their kids, and I
hear it all the time. You know, when you're with
your friends, I just want them to be happy, don't I, darling,
I just want you to be happy. So what we
think we're saying to our kids is we're saying I
just want the best for you. What our kids are
(11:58):
hearing is is I'm not happy. I will disappoint you.
So that is the first stage of mask wearing. So
our kids putting on this mask and pretending they're happy
and don't feel like they can talk about their emotions.
And it's just storing up of those emotions that creates
the biggest problems in those early stages.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So just accept what your kids are saying and just
support them, I guess.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
And support them so and that brings us beautifully back
to this tour. I'm on. It doesn't matter what I
think about the environment. I'm in the last one. Hundred
meters of my life. Our kids are at the beginning
of their marathon. If this is a problem for them,
then what I think doesn't matter. It's about the kids.
(12:44):
It's about do we want them running through sunshine and
clear rain or do we want them running through storms?
You know, So put your put your little prejudices to
one side, and your hate of Greta from Burg or
whatever name is to one side. And it's not about me.
It's about my kids. It's about my grandkids.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Hey, just quickly, people want to donate to gumbook Friday.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Just jump on board on a gumboot friday dot com
easy and go on there and click any of the
donate buttons that you'd like to click. So excellent, A
couple of clicks away, Okay, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, thanks for your time. I can ride safely and
we'll look forward to catching you up again sometime.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
For more from News Talks B listen live on air
or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks b Follow
this and our wide range of podcast now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Comboot Friday returns this week on the first of November,
so just a few days away, as communities come together
to raise awareness for youth mental health across the country.
This year's event involves the auctioning of the Hope Home,
built and donated by Fowler Homes, with all the proceeds
going back into I Am Hope and Mike King is
(00:39):
the founder as we all know, and he is with us. Mike,
good morning, Jim.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
How about you.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm pretty good.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Firstly, I had a few texts coming and telling me
and I made the news. You've you've had your bike,
you had your bike stolen and what will you just
tell us? What have you been doing on that bike?
Because it's not just a story about man loser's bike,
is it.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
No. So I've been riding an Upto two by two
electric motorbikes from or to Capriano, down the West coast
to Bluff and I'm heading home up the east coast.
I'm currently in total I'm not raising awareness of the
impact of climate change is having on young people's mental health.
(01:23):
We did a research paper after kids were raising it
with me in schools, and the research came back and
said that sixty percent of young people lists the climate
as their number one anxiety. So it's that I was
going to dotionally about. I'm a boomer, I didn't really
(01:43):
care about the environment, and more importantly, I was I
was one of those people that couldn't stand environmentalists because
they would always point the finger of us boomers and
go to your vault, it's your vault, and I made
it personal. Yeah. Actually, now it's about the kids.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So you're basically raising awareness or is that's it's an
awareness thing? Is it a funding thing? Sorry I missed
that bit of voice.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
No, no, no, no, no, it is totally. At the women's
raising exercise, I've stopped at twenty seven towns so far,
have have community talks with people. I have climate change
people with me at each of the stops, talking about
different things around the climate. Nothing. The key thing that's
(02:33):
missing from this whole debate is hope. We're constantly being
told what the problem is, but no one's talking about
some of the things they give our young people some hope.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, actually, I think that's that's right. It's always about
you are naughty, bad people, bad people. But it's like
what we yeah, yeah, hey, so are you traveling on
your how many people are you traveling with?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
So I have one man in an elliptic van and
we've had more battery and resty with the van than
we have with the.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Bottom the So the bike's actually it's not an electric
bike in terms of you're peddling as well. It's an
electric motorbike.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
It's an electric motorbike the tops out of fifty kilometers
an hour. It's governed and you can't make up time.
So if you're going up a hill at ten kilometers
an hour, you can't make it. It'll just tap out
of fifty k going down the other side. So I'm
averaging around anywhere between twenty two and thirty three kilometers
(03:34):
an hour. So you get to see a lot of
the country.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's not as exciting as I was hoping. Does the
van drive either ahead of your behind you flash outs
like saying watch out.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
No, no, no, no, no no. We would never do that,
it would cause too much disruption. So his job is
to just get to the next town and charge of
this van, and he carries spares and stuff like that,
so he's just there as a support vehicle. I've had
two punches so far and that's the only issue have had.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I guess you're not traveling on motorways, am. I'm going
to stop banging on about the bike. But I'm quite
intrigued by the by the trip because open ride at
fifty k sounds dangerous.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, I travel on the inside of the white line
between the single and the white libe and the road
and it is very, very safe. And yes, I have
driven down a couple of motorays and guess what, it
is safer on the motorways than it is on someone
else state highways. But everyone's ready, respectful. Everyone knows I'm
(04:39):
dressed like a traveling orange tone, so people didn't see me.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I'm sure if somebody toots you there probably Oh hell no,
I just tooted a Mike King. Pretend it's a friendly too.
By the way, what were you afraid of when you
were growing up? Because for me, we were petrified that
the bomb was going to go off and that was
going to be it?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Was it? I wish, I wish that was what I
was scared of. I was always scared of not fitting them.
That was my biggest fear. So I was one of
those people that morphed into a thousand different characters. I
turned to the person I thought you wanted me to
be so I would fit in. So I kind of
(05:22):
lost myself very young and didn't find myself again soil
I was nearly fifty years old.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Well, you know, I think you're probably not alone in
that front. Actually, I think it takes us all a
while to gra up, doesn't it. Hey, yeah, yeah, good,
only say let's we've got gumboot Friday coming up?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Actually help, I guess because you know you've been funded
by the government. Now, does that shift the focus on
the whole gun boot Friday fundraising? Because have you got
enough money and it's more about awareness or are you
still seeking people to deep into.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Their pockets it's fund raising. You see, there's this perception
that's that's been put out there that I have twenty
four million dollars, that Christopher came around to the house,
dropped off twenty four million dollars and rode off into
the sunset. And it's really impacted our charity because people
(06:16):
think I have got twenty four million traditional funders a
lot of trust don't give us any money anymore. So
the fact is the government gave the Ministry of Health
twenty four million dollars and we paid the monthly bill
to the counselors. We've paid the bill and then we
(06:36):
hand the receipts over to the Ministry and they give
us back the money. Monthly capped it five hundred thousand dollars,
so anything over five hundred thousand we have to pay. Now.
The thing that the issue that we've got at the
moment is we're keeping it just under five hundred thousand
a month at the moment. But I've got five hundred
(06:59):
and fifty chounces on my platform. I've got five hundred
and eighty on a waiting list. So this nonsense that
Andrew Little Labor put out that there weren't enough councilors,
there's always bollocks. So I've got all of these counters.
I am now putting on one hundred and fifty starting
next week, and that's going to take that's going to
(07:21):
take the bill up. So you know, we we do
need money, and one hundred percent of that money will
go to the counselors. We don't clip the ticket.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Mike remind us what is gumboot Friday and how it works.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So gun boot Friday is today where we encourage people
to wear gun boots to work, where their gun boots
around the house, where the gun boots to school to
let the kids who are who are walking through life
with depression know that there are people out there that
(07:56):
are thinking about them. And that is a fun way
to raise awareness for young people who are struggling with
depression and putting on gun boots. You know, it's a
metaphor having depressions like walking through MUDs. So let's for
one day walk through mud with our kids and raise
money for counsels.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And so the actual that's the I am Hope, isn't it?
And that's basically it works by funding counseling sessions for
kids as they need it.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Correct. So the im Hope Foundation and gum Boot Friday
are two separate entities and all money raised for gum
Boot Friday goes directly to the counselors, goes into the key.
We bang directly to the councilors, and we pay all
the admin, the upkeep, and the wages out of the
Iron Hope Foundation.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
How is new Zealand's mental health looking at the moment,
are we improving it at all? What are you watching?
What are you seeing?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
No, it's not improving. I think our focus is there's
too much on the crisis end. For example, if one
hundred kids go into hospital with a mental health issue
to A and E, only two of them get seen,
and we are relying on our health professionals to decide
(09:12):
which two get seen, and so we're always pushing towards
the crisis in now imagine The easiest way to describe
to Zone's mental heart from imagine imagine mental health is
a cake. The bottom tier of the cake is anxiety.
Sev of all mental health issues coming through Gunbup Friday
(09:37):
are associated with anxiety. The second tier of the cake
is depression, which stands the reason if you are anxious
long enough it it's depressing. The third tier of the
cake is stress, and the fourth tier is really interesting.
It's cupcakes, lots and lots of cupcakes. You've got you know,
you have bipolar, you'll have drugs, you'll have alcohol, vapings
(10:01):
on there, all of these little things. And I think
one of the issues that we've got is where for
too long we focus on on the cupcakes. For example,
vaping is a big thing in you know, at the moment,
So it allows governments to say we're going to have
the vaping rate, Well, you're halfing a cupcake. If we
(10:23):
have the anxiety rate, we half the problem. But the
problem with mental health is the anxiety, the depression, and
the stress. That requires generational change. And politicians don't have generations.
They have three year period so it's pretty hard.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, I mean, what would your advice be to kids
in the early stages, or how would you intervene with
anyone within your sort of sphere of influence to stop
them going on that journey towards the cupcakes as you
call it.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
I never ever give kids advice. My advice is to
parents and adults, listen to your kids. Stop criticizing their
every move. You know, our kids, I'm from school. I'll
tell you about five things that happen their day, four
amazing ones bad. What are we focused on? We're always
focusing on the bad. And what we think we're saying
(11:16):
to our kids is you're a great kids, kid, but
you must do better. You can do better. I love you,
but you can do better. The message our children are hearing.
No matter what I do, I'm never going to be
good enough. Also, stop telling your kids to stop crying
and stop being angry, and stop telling the weather to
stop raining or the wind to stop blowing. These are
(11:38):
all emotions. You know, the worst advice people give their
kids or say in front of their kids, and I
hear it all the time. You know, when you're with
your friends, I just want them to be happy, don't I, darling,
I just want you to be happy. So what we
think we're saying to our kids is we're saying I
just want the best for you. What our kids are
(11:58):
hearing is is I'm not happy. I will disappoint you.
So that is the first stage of mask wearing. So
our kids putting on this mask and pretending they're happy
and don't feel like they can talk about their emotions.
And it's just storing up of those emotions that creates
the biggest problems in those early stages.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So just accept what your kids are saying and just
support them, I guess.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
And support them so and that brings us beautifully back
to this tour. I'm on. It doesn't matter what I
think about the environment. I'm in the last one. Hundred
meters of my life. Our kids are at the beginning
of their marathon. If this is a problem for them,
then what I think doesn't matter. It's about the kids.
(12:44):
It's about do we want them running through sunshine and
clear rain or do we want them running through storms?
You know, So put your put your little prejudices to
one side, and your hate of Greta from Burg or
whatever name is to one side. And it's not about me.
It's about my kids. It's about my grandkids.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Hey, just quickly, people want to donate to gumbook Friday.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Just jump on board on a gumboot friday dot com
easy and go on there and click any of the
donate buttons that you'd like to click. So excellent, A
couple of clicks away, Okay, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, thanks for your time. I can ride safely and
we'll look forward to catching you up again sometime.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
For more from News Talks B listen live on air
or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.
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