Our Stories

Realising a better future

Shayne Walker (Ngāi Tahu – Awarua) is unreservedly excited when he talks about the opportunity for transformative change presented by the burgeoning partnership between Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Oranga Tamariki. “I’m stoked, like superbly stoked, that our iwi has lined up for this,” he says. “In signing the partnership, they’ve said: ‘We want to get on with this. We want to care for our own tamariki, as well as all tamariki in care in our takiwā.’” More importantly, Oranga Tamariki is working alongside the iwi to realise that aspiration. “The CEO and senior leadership team are desperate for this to succeed,” says Shayne. “To me that’s the exciting part – my observation is that the national leadership team and the local staff that we deal with here in Dunedin, they turn up to be good partners.”

Restoring the mana of our most vulnerable

In 2018 the Labour-led coalition government established the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. This came after years of lobbying from survivors, community leaders, iwi Māori, the Human Rights Commission and the United Nations. The inquiry is investigating why people were taken into care, the abuses that took place, and the lasting impact on survivors. It is specifically focusing on Māori, Pasifika and disabled people because of the disproportionate representation of these communities in the care system.

Building on a legacy

Peter Ramsden (Rangitāne, Ngāi Tahu – Koukourarata) is a man well known for his boundless passion – for his people, the environment and for the regeneration of the place he calls home – Koukourarata. In the recent Queen’s Birthday honours, Peter was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for his considerable contribution to the environment over the past decades.

Genomes run deep in whakapapa

Genomics is the study of genomes. A genome is the complete set of DNA of any living thing. Each genome has a history. It has parents, grandparents, and it potentially descends from a long line of chiefs. Like whakapapa, environment shapes the genome. Its surroundings cause adaptation and evolution.

Levi Collier-Robinson (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Porou and Te Whānau a Apanui) is using genomics to help understand the kōwaro, one of our endangered taonga species.

Against the COVID tide

Ruminating on the path that brought her to owning and operating a restaurant, Sahni Bennett (Ngāti Mako, Wairewa) says her success probably has a lot to do with her dogged determination to build on what existed before. At just 22, she opened her first cafe with no experience and three tamariki in tow. “I learnt how to carry a baby and make a flat white at the same time; they’d just come along to work and were very much part of it,” she laughs.

A Dream Come True

The return of the Spirits Bay honey brand was a dream come true for the Murray whānau – a decade after it passed out of their hands. Celebrated at an emotional ceremony earlier this year, the whānau came together with a delegation from Ngāi Tahu and its subsidiary, Oha Honey, who brought Spirits Bay home.

Life in the USA – A Grim Reality

When things are going wrong in America I hear from people: are you all right, what is really happening over there, when are you coming home? “It is beyond me why you have stayed this long, ” wrote a friend I have known since high school. “He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata,” I write back.

Tonight, people are rioting in Minnesota, the first state I lived in as a 17-year-old exchange student. People are rioting in Georgia, the state I call home. In Minneapolis, a police officer knelt on the neck of a black man until he could no longer breathe. Say his name – George Floyd. In Glynn County, Georgia, an ex-detective and his son have been charged, three months after killing a black man out for a run. Say his name – Ahmaud Arbery. They are not the first or the last, just the latest victims of modern-day lynching. Police kill people of colour in the US. There is no pause for a pandemic. This is the country I have lived in for 18 years and the country I am preparing to leave.

Ngā tīpuna i Tamatea

Around 1pm on Sunday, 28 March, 1773 a small waka unua with carved taurapa and tauihu glided out of Te Unu-o-Momotu (Cascade Cove), the narrow bay on the south side of the entrance to Tamatea (Dusky Sound). As the waka rounded the point it came to a standstill as the eight kaihoe (paddlers) stared in amazement. Two days prior, the Resolution had slipped quietly into the fiord and anchored at Whetū (Pickersgill Harbour), a small sheltered bay to the north of Te Unu-o-Momotu. For 30 minutes the visitors on the strange vessel with tall masts and sails tried to entice them aboard. Eventually, as rain started, the kaihoe turned and paddled away. So began the encounter between our southern tīpuna, Captain James Cook, and the crew of the Resolution.

Te Ao o te Māori

When COVID-19 brought the world to a standstill it required some people to strap up their boots and get busy. Waikura McGregor (Waitaha, Māmoe, Kāti Wheke) was one of those people who, protected by a mask and rubber gloves, was out in the community supporting whānau.

Waikura is a Whānau Ora Navigator with Hei Whakapiki Mauri, an Ōtautahi-based organisation which supports Māori, and their whānau, living in the community with disabilities.

Hei Mahi Māra
Kai to Power up the Immune System

It has been a strange and somewhat frightening start to 2020 with the release of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2) casting a dark shadow across the world.

As we look to the night sky for the return of Matariki (July 13-16) and a new year, I think it is important to focus on what we can do to empower ourselves. It’s not enough to set up roadside checkpoints to discourage unnecessary travel as seen in previous lockdown levels – we all need to take responsibility for our own health to ensure our body’s immune system has everything it needs to deal with any virus that might come our way.