TE KARAKA

From the CEO
Navigating Change

It’s been an extraordinary year with the Covid-19 Delta variant consuming our every move, and as we race towards the 90 percent double vaccination milestone across the country, a new strain is pushing its way around the world.

If we don’t protect ourselves now then what is the point of “Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri ā muri ake nei”. It’s incumbent upon us to be intergenerational and that means safeguarding the whānau, the whakapapa and our health in a pandemic world.

Whenua
Makarore

Makarore is the correct spelling for the Makarora River which flows into the northern end of Lake Wānaka. Manga, or maka in the Kāi Tahu dialect, means stream.

Ka hao te Rakatahi
My never-ending journey of learning te reo

I remember my māmā speaking te reo in our whare. I don’t remember what she said, only that she was telling me off. But I also remember times when tamariki at our school spoke more reo than we learnt in class and feeling left behind; feeling like I could never learn this and as a five-year-old told my parents I wanted to move into an English-speaking class.
Looking back at my five-year-old self, I wish I had told her that it was her birthright to freely speak her mother tongue and that a few mistakes is part of learning, a part of life.

He Whakaaro
Titia ki te uma…
Hold fast to your heart…

“E hau nei tō reo pōhiri, ki ngā iwi puta noa i ngā motu e toru – o te Ika, o te waka, o te papaonekura, kia huihui ai tātou…”
The opening lines to ‘Te Matatini ki te Ao’ by Rob Ruha and friends, which became the theme song of the 2019 Matatini Festival of the same name. The last Matatini held in the ‘before Covid-19’ time and space which now seems, for some, a lifetime ago.