Stretton Unfiltered

Methamphetamine use in New Zealand has doubled in a matter of years. We are seizing more, prosecuting more people and continuing to invest in enforcement. Yet demand keeps climbing.

So what are we missing?

In this episode of Stretton Unfiltered, Annah sits down with Sarah Helm, Executive Director of the New Zealand Drug Foundation.

Sarah’s work is grounded in a deceptively simple idea. People take drugs because, in that moment, the drug offers them something they need. If we want to reduce the harm, we must first understand what sits beneath the use.

Sarah talks about the links between methamphetamine, trauma, poverty, undiagnosed ADHD and belonging. She challenges the belief that someone must hit rock bottom before they can be helped and explains why punishment alone has failed to make our communities safer.

The conversation also examines the three New Zealanders dying from preventable overdoses every week, an emerging research project in Gisborne and the Northland collaboration that showed what can happen when Police, health providers, iwi and community organisations work together.

Annah brings 12 years of experience through RAW, walking alongside women whose lives have been shaped by addiction, offending and imprisonment. Together, Annah and Sarah confront the difficult reality facing women who leave prison only to return to communities where methamphetamine is readily available and deeply normalised.

This is a conversation about addiction, stigma, accountability and the possibility of change.

Because nobody should have to lose everything before help becomes available.

Connect with us on socials
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Instagram
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Facebook
🌸 Annah Stretton TikTok
🌸 Annah Stretton Instagram
🌸 Annah Stretton Facebook
🌸 Join our VIP page
🌸 www.annahstretton.co.nz

SHOP OUR BOOKS 📖
Rag Trade To Mag Trade:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Grit Before Grace:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Wise Heart:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚

At just 22, Annabelle Chauncy arrived in Uganda with the ambition to build a school.
She was young, white, privileged and entering a community that had already been promised a school by a Westerner who never returned. The parents had every reason to be suspicious. Why should they trust her with their children, and how could she create change without imposing her own beliefs about what that change should look like?
Eighteen years later, School for Life has established three schools, impacted more than 4,500 lives and developed a hub and spoke model that supports other schools throughout the Ugandan community.
In this episode of Stretton Unfiltered, Annabelle shares what it took to turn one enormous idea into a sustainable organisation. She talks about earning trust, listening to the community, raising money from the other side of the world and learning that real change can only be created with people, never done to them.
She also shares the story of a young girl whose mother expected her to leave school after year four and marry. Today, that young woman is studying accounting at university.
We hear how School for Life survived two years of classroom closures by delivering lessons, food and hygiene supplies on motorbikes, how 97 percent of its students returned, and how growing from one school to three in just two years nearly broke the organisation.
This is an honest conversation about the lotto of life, the complexity of privilege and the extraordinary difference education can make when communities are given the opportunity to lead their own change.

Connect with us on socials
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Instagram
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Facebook
🌸 Annah Stretton TikTok
🌸 Annah Stretton Instagram
🌸 Annah Stretton Facebook
🌸 Join our VIP page
🌸 www.annahstretton.co.nz

SHOP OUR BOOKS 📖
Rag Trade To Mag Trade:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Grit Before Grace:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Wise Heart:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚

At 14, Camille Keyte went to visit her boyfriend and was kidnapped in a meth lab.
It was the beginning of a life that would move through trauma, bodybuilding, sexual compulsion, methamphetamine, gang connections, motherhood, business ownership and serious criminal offending.
From the outside, Camille appeared capable and successful. She owned a hairdressing salon, had a home and was raising two daughters. Behind that life, addiction was changing shape.
Her obsession with bodybuilding became so extreme that she invited men over for sex to meet the number of calories she believed she had to burn each day. Methamphetamine later took control, and Camille eventually became a dealer within the gang environment.
Within eight months, she lost her salon, her home and her children.
By November 2020, Camille was wanted by police. She wore a wig into Kmart to buy clothes for prison, drove the length of the North Island believing every car behind her was an undercover police officer, and eventually handed herself in.
What followed was a high risk cell at Auckland Women’s Prison, a song on the radio, a mother prepared to call the police on her own daughter and a decision that changed Camille’s life.
Today, Camille has turned her lived experience into leadership in addiction recovery.
This is not a comfortable story. It is a powerful account of trauma, cross addiction, offending, motherhood and the extraordinary work required to build an entirely different life.
This episode discusses addiction, violence, kidnapping, sexual assault, suicide and compulsive sexual behaviour.
For free and confidential support, call or text 1737 at any time. For alcohol or drug support, call the Alcohol Drug Helpline on 0800 787 797.

Connect with us on socials
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Instagram
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Facebook
🌸 Annah Stretton TikTok
🌸 Annah Stretton Instagram
🌸 Annah Stretton Facebook
🌸 Join our VIP page
🌸 www.annahstretton.co.nz

SHOP OUR BOOKS 📖
Rag Trade To Mag Trade:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Grit Before Grace:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Wise Heart:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚

Peta Mathias has never been very interested in standing still. At 76, she is still travelling between New Zealand and France, leading culinary adventures, running Supper Clubs, writing books and finding new reasons to say yes. From washing dishes in a Paris kitchen to owning a restaurant, becoming one of New Zealand’s best-known television food personalities and now releasing her 20th book, Peta has built a life around food, colour, curiosity and a considerable amount of courage. She joins me from her home in Uzès, in the South of France to talk about the risks that worked, the ones that didn’t, Dolly Parton, rejection, reinvention and why she has absolutely no intention of disappearing quietly into retirement.
Recipes from the Supper Club: A Ritual of Togetherness is out in October.
Connect with us on socials
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Instagram
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Facebook
🌸 Annah Stretton TikTok
🌸 Annah Stretton Instagram
🌸 Annah Stretton Facebook
🌸 Join our VIP page
🌸 www.annahstretton.co.nz

SHOP OUR BOOKS 📖
Rag Trade To Mag Trade:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Grit Before Grace:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Wise Heart:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚

New Zealand fashion is under pressure. But is the problem fast fashion, cash strapped consumers and offshore competition, or has parts of the industry simply stopped giving people what they want?In this episode, Annah and Sami get into the uncomfortable realities of fashion today: why we keep buying incredibly cheap clothing even when we know how it may have been produced, the extraordinary rise of secondhand, Shein and AliExpress copying designer product, and what the closure of Sylvester says about longevity and relevance in business. They also challenge the idea that New Zealand consumers or government should be responsible for keeping local fashion brands alive simply because they are local. After 35 years in fashion, Annah has seen the customer change dramatically. Some weeks, as much as 80% of her own company's sales can now come from accessories rather than clothing. So perhaps the bigger question isn't whether New Zealand fashion is broken. It's whether fashion businesses are changing fast enough to remain relevant.

Connect with us on socials
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Instagram
🎧 Stretton Unfiltered Facebook
🌸 Annah Stretton TikTok
🌸 Annah Stretton Instagram
🌸 Annah Stretton Facebook
🌸 Join our VIP page
🌸 www.annahstretton.co.nz

SHOP OUR BOOKS 📖
Rag Trade To Mag Trade:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Grit Before Grace:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚
Wise Heart:
Ebook available here
Order the physical book here 📚