Hello, my name is Ethan Asi.
I had the privilege of being invited to Pride Lands Wellington this year to speak to their amazing children about my career in the jewellery industry as an apprentice, and most importantly, my journey to getting there.
When I arrived at the school hall with Christine, Director of The Village Goldsmith, I was hit with two emotions. The first emotion was excitement. Excited to be able to talk to a room full of young children about my story. The second emotion was nostalgia. Nostalgic because walking into the hall immediately took me back to a time when I was a little kid, attending after school care just like them.
”When I was around their age, I wasn’t the most well-behaved boy.
In fact, I was always getting into trouble for something. Sneaking out of class, tagging on the walls with anything I could get my hands on, getting into fights with the other boys at school or any of the other hundred things. My behaviour was horrible, and it didn’t stop at primary and intermediate;
It carried on to high school.
But high school was different. In high school I felt things were a little serious. Here, I started to really feel the consequences of my actions. In primary school and intermediate, whenever I got told off for something I would just shrug it off and carry on with my life. But here they weren’t so lenient. During the first two years I didn’t take the schoolwork seriously and was misbehaving – so because of this, my grades weren’t looking great.
Almost every single exam I sat, I would look down at the pieces of paper and just freeze. This resulted in a lot of ‘not achieved’ marks and heading into NCEA level, I struggled really badly. So bad that I didn’t pass any of my classes. In fact, in one of the classes everyone had gotten their results back from a test taken a few days ago and I learnt that I was the only one who received a failed mark. This took a HUGE toll on me, and I only had two choices: knuckle down, fix my behaviour and concentrate on studying. Or just keep doing what I’m doing and not improve at all.
Being an ignorant young lad, I chose the latter. I was so burdened with the weight of failure. I wasn’t passionate anymore about the things I love, and my grades were horrible. So, I thought to myself “What’s the point? I’m not passing these subjects which means I’m not going to uni, and I’ve got nothing else going on for me so what’s the point in trying?” I felt hopeless and worthless. So, I decided to keep gliding down the mischief lane.
Ethan (and Christine hidden amoungst the cubs) on their visit to Pride Lands.
The chance find.
Just over halfway through 2019, I’m 16 years old, still doing the same stuff and not really making any progress towards my schoolwork. But one day something pivotal happened. One day during the school holidays I was lying in bed thinking about dropping out. I started scrolling through the internet trying to find jobs and trades that I could do since I obviously wasn’t going to uni. I couldn’t find anything satisfying until suddenly I came across
something interesting. Jewellery manufacturing.
There was a video on YouTube of a guy making jewellery with his hands and this had me intrigued because I always just assumed all jewellery was mass produced. I watched this man’s videos for hours, just watching him use his skills to bend up metals and all these other methods to craft jewellery.
The hot flames of the torches for melting the golds, the filing and bending movements to manipulate the precious metals – it was all so mesmerizing. I didn’t really care for the pieces themselves at the time, but the craftsmanship and process of it was what hooked me in.
I’ve always loved art since I was a kid, and after spending hours watching different videos on jewellery manufacturing, I saw that jewellery is art. Wearable art. That’s when the idea of becoming a jeweller came to me. For a brief moment I had a little bit of hope that I could make something of myself.
Ethan and Christine get their 'Social Development Certificate of Appreciation' from Moses at Pride Lands.
Fast forward to near the end of 2020.
One day during tech class, I’m sitting at the back of the classroom watching YouTube when a loud knock on the door interrupted everyone. A lady walked in with some papers and introduced herself to us. Her name was Coleen, and she was in charge of something called the ‘Gateway programme’.
This is a programme that offered senior students’ early access to a workplace environment to give them a taste of life in the workforce after school. This interested some of the boys and when she finished speaking, they all lined up to collect a form from her to join up. Most of them talked about getting into plumbing, building, electrician work etc. Some talked about becoming barbers and chefs. It was all pretty exciting for the boys; however, I just brushed it off, put my headphones back on and continued watching YouTube.
About ten minutes passed when suddenly I was hit with a strike of realization. I immediately thought of the day one year ago when I came across jewellery manufacturing and since that day, becoming a jeweller had always been at the very back of my mind leading up to this point. But now, I realised this is an opportunity to actually get things rolling.
After the last group of boys finished talking with Coleen and she was about to pack up, I quickly rushed over to her. I introduced myself and expressed my desire to enter the world of jewellery. She was quite shocked to hear that as this was the first time a student had talked about this field of work.
After speaking about different trades such as labour work and hospitality with the other students, this was quite a pleasant surprise. We talked for a while and then I gave her my name and my year level on a piece of paper before she left the room.
About two or three days later, I was sitting in science class when I received an email from Coleen. The email stated that the Gateway program can only select a certain number of boys to join up so if we wanted to be a part of it, we needed to write a cover letter explaining why we should be picked. Entering the world of jewellery was really the only thing I could see myself doing in the future and if I couldn’t go through with this, I don’t know where I would’ve ended up. So, this was super important for me.
I wrote about three paragraphs explaining how important this was and why they should pick me. My letter must’ve been good because a few days later, I received an email back saying I had been chosen to be part of the program. I actually couldn’t believe it.
”After years of being convinced I wasn’t good enough to amount to something, and years of insecurity hidden behind shameful behaviour, I finally found something that I could find genuine passion in.
First steps.
The beginning of 2021, my final year of high school, Coleen had managed to find a work placement for me that I would attend to every Tuesday. This placement was at a jewellery company named The Village Goldsmith.
The morning of my first day I was quite nervous but excited at the same time. I caught the bus into town and met up with a teacher from school named Corinne, who then walked with me to the entrance of The Village Goldsmith. We entered the building and were warmly welcomed by Christine Douglas. Corinne and I sat down with Christine, and she gave a little insight into what the company does and how it works. After we finished talking, Corinne left to go back to the school and Christine showed me around the store. We then went upstairs, and I was introduced to Ian Douglas, the man who founded the company and who is also Christine’s husband. Ian and Christine started the company back in 1981 and have been running it together ever since. I was surprised and inspired when I learnt that.
After I met everyone upstairs, I was taken downstairs into the workshop and met all the jewellers. I was shocked immediately and kind of froze when I walked in because everything I saw in the jewellery videos I watched two years ago was right in front of me here in this workshop. I then met the workshop managers, Steve and Col, who showed me around. As soon as the workday started Steve sat me down at one of the work benches and gave me some stuff to do. As I was sitting down, I took a moment to reflect on myself and on my life before I got here. It took a while for me to accept where I was, but I really was truly grateful. Grateful for the opportunity that came my way.
I spent about a month at The Village Goldsmith doing my work placement and during the time I was there, at 17 years old, I crafted my first ever piece of jewellery – a sterling silver ring. A ring that I still wear to this day. After making it with the help of Jordan, one of the jewellers, I looked at it for ages and said to myself, “yeah, this is what I wanna do.” After finishing the Gateway placement, I couldn’t stop thinking about becoming a jeweller.
I told everyone who was around me that I’m going to become a jeweller one day. I told EVERYONE this. Mates, family, strangers on the bus, strangers at the movie theatre. Everyone. I was so pumped to work in jewellery manufacturing.
”At the end of that year, I left high school, and I knew exactly what I was going to do.
My big leap.
June 2022, I’m 18 years old and I’d been working night shift at countdown for the last month. It was alright, but this is obviously not what I wanted to do. After finishing a shift one morning I caught the bus home and before I went to sleep, I remembered I had Christine’s phone number. I decided to send her a text message asking if I could come back, but this time to work there.
After days of no response, she finally replied and invited me to have a meeting with her and Ian on Monday the next week. I showed up to that meeting with a keen attitude to let them know that I was eager to work here. After we finished talking, I wasn’t promised anything but as soon as I got home, I ran up to my room and immediately started typing up my letter of resignation for my job at countdown, because I knew deep down that I had my foot in the door.
June 27th, 2022, at 18 years old I began my part time internship at The Village Goldsmith. After working hard and riding it out for 8 months, on March 1st, 2023, at 19 years old, I was offered a full-time apprenticeship.
I’ve been working here ever since, learning the craft of jewellery manufacturing and slowly getting better every day. My journey is far from over, in fact it’s only just getting started and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for me.
I explained this journey to the Pride Lands children in hopes of inspiring them.
To let them know that we may face some serious challenges and obstacles in adolescence, but with resilience, courage and perseverance, no matter how down we might be, we really can achieve what we want in life if we go after it.
