Ihapera Otara Space Cadet to NASA

Ihapera Waru Martin | 16 Years Old | Maori

I’ve always been inspired to be a mathematician because I loved maths and understood science. I’ve been involved into a lot of STEM programs, they’re called Puhoro but I always loved being given an STEM question and just figuring out how to solve 95% of the time I was always right.

My confidence however never grew. So it stayed a dream. I've had a huge amount of challenges in my short life which led me to eventually leaving school to find immediate work to support my young siblings. It's been hard and at the lowest point of my life I met some incredible people who took time out to support me back to a place where I am thriving and feeling optimistic about life and especially becoming more resilient. Since then I've taken an active role in my personal and professional development over the past year and have had the opportunity to get back involved in learning, self development and had been given an opportunity to be a core leader in our local community youth leadership collective.

When the opportunity came up to apply to go to space camp it immediately took me back to when I was actively involved in learning STEM and how much I loved it and so I took the chance to apply to explore this space again in the hopes of helping to figuring out my potential career pathway options.