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Growing 'he māra kai' with your whānau

The term ‘he māra kai’ means the food garden.With many of us returning to the old ways of living, caring for our environment and leaving a footprint that is gentle, māra kai is an integral part of how we shape our future sustenance at home.It is the way we see wonder, a small kākano (seed) carrying whakapapa (ancestry) of our past to feed us in today's world.This tiny potential carries stories and hope that, if planted, can fully express itself to nourish us. With the ...

Māori get seat at table

Māori make up nearly half of the 19 member panel and research team appointed for the new research programme into how New Zealand police can ensure they deliver fair policing.The police are partnering with the New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science at the University of Waikato, and criminal justice advocate Tā Kim Workman for the programme, 'Understanding Policing Delivery'.The programme is focused on identifying where, and to what extent, bias exists at a system level in the...

Te reo Māori:

Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT) has been chosen as one of 13 providers to deliver a programme aimed at normalising te reo Māori in the education sector.The $108 million government Te Ahu o Te Reo Māori programme, launched at the end of 2020, is designed to upskill 40,000 teachers and school staff, from early learning to secondary schools, in the language and culture.The programme is being rolled out nationwide after a pilot in four regions. NMIT said it wo...

Māori studies professor explains

University of Auckland Māori studies Professor Margaret Mutu says white supremacy has been in New Zealand since 1769 when English navigator Captain James Cook arrived."Māori are very used to white supremacy and we experience it on a day-to-day basis. It's very, very normalised in this country, and often when Māori say that white supremacy or racism is affecting them, we're not believed," she tells Newshub."These days, there is a heightened sense of sensitivity in the Pākehā world to the fac...

Kupe's voyage of discovery through Aotearoa

The great navigator Kupe is said to have had a pretty eventful time in New Zealand.According to Māori story telling, he chased a giant tentacled creature Te Wheke-a-Muturangi to the Wairarapa, where he almost lost his life in a battle with it on Raukawa Moana (Cook Strait) and had epic adventures in Wellington and along the west coast of the North Island before finding a temporary home in the Hokianga.Legend has it he loved Te Tai Tokerau so much he turned one of his sons into a taniw...

First school in New Zealand

It has been 18 months in the making but, finally, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and the Ministry of Education have allowed Te Wharekura o Ngāti Rongomai to rearrange its dates of schooling for the year and reset to the Maramataka Māori away from the Gregorian calendar, which is a solar dating system used by most of the world.Tūkiterangi and Rēnata Curtis, co-principals of the school in Rotorua, say they were thrilled to learn they can go ahead. This now means the school can change term on...

Foodbank supports whānau

Two women are fighting against kai insecurity after lockdown highlighted the needs of whānau across their rohe.More than 400 whānau have been using Te Pātaka Kai 4412 in Palmerston North each week to fill up their puku with numbers continuing to increase.Kai bank manager Kylie Johanson said during lockdown Whakapai Hauora Charitable Trust and other Māori organisations were struck by the severity of the kai insecurity whānau were facing.It was this need that sparked the idea f...

Canada lowers flags

The Canadian government demanded all flags at federal buildings be lowered to half-mast on Sunday to commemorate the death of over 200 indigenous children. A mass grave containing the remains of 215 indigenous children was discovered on the grounds of a former residential school in British Columbia. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was a "painful reminder" of a "shameful chapter of our country's history". "To honour the 215 children whose lives were taken at the former Ka...

Livestream:

Tonight on The Hui, more than 60 percent of all rangatahi in the youth justice system are Māori, and many have complicated speech and language difficulties.Tracy Karanui-Golf is helping young people to understand our complex legal system. She's currently the only full-time Māori speech and language therapist working in courts acrossAotearoa. But she's making a big difference in changing the lives of rangatahi Māori and their whānau.Then, mental health advocate Mike King discusses his de...

Rereata Makiha: Recapturing ancient knowledge

Matua Rereata Makiha is a renowned Māori astrologer and a leading authority on the maramataka -  the Māori lunar calendar, as well as traditional food planting and harvesting practices and kōrero tuku iho, or Māori history, handed down through generations.Matua Rereata Makiha is a renowned Māori astrologer and a leading authority on the maramataka -  the Māori lunar calendar, as well as traditional food planting and harvesting practices and kōrero tuku iho, or Māori history, ha...

Mindfulness study:

Karakia and connecting with te hā (the breath) were among mindfulness practices found to improve health outcomes of wāhine Māori suffering chronic stress.As part of her doctoral research at Massey University's School of Psychology, Dr Miriama Ketu-McKenzie (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Ngāti Rongomai and Ngāti Whakatere) ran a "Māori-centric mindfulness programme" for eight weeks.Her research found mindfulness practices which "wove in Māori elements" helped regulate the hormone cort...

Many of our energy assets are built on Māori land,

He created a power company to help vulnerable whānau. Now, Ezra Hirawani is fighting to keep his dream alive. Jehan Casinader reports.Ezra Hirawani, the man leading a quiet revolution in the power industry, is dressed by Kmart. Every few months, he buys a fistful of black, white and grey T-shirts. A pair of shorts completes his work outfit, and he’s confident enough to rock up to meetings with high-powered executives.“When I started in business, I decided to be fiercely pono. That means aut...

Race Relations Commissioner says video threatening Māori

Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon says a recent YouTube video threatening violence against Māori is "extreme white supremacist" behaviour. Foon told Newshub he wants "everything under the law [to] be thrown at these people or this person for inciting violence". The video was uploaded to YouTube on May 23 but was taken down after the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) got involved.The contents of the video were described as "highly distressing" in a statement provided by the DIA ...

Employment Opportunity: West Coast

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'Cigarettes felt like a comfort blanket for my whānau and I':

Reformed smoker Rebecca Gilbert is urging Māori to break the cycle of tobacco use among whānau and get behind the Government’s proposed Smokefree 2025 Action Plan.Gilbert, who is acting health promotion manager for the Cancer Society, says many Māori will relate to her experience of spending most of her life entrenched in a community that normalised and embraced smoking from a young age, and turned to tobacco during good times and bad.“From my teenage years onwards, every social occasion ...

Māori health authority

The interim Māori health authority has moved another step forward with iwi leaders and Māori health experts appointed to the steering group tasked with choosing who will govern the authority.Six members have been chosen to sit on the steering group by chair Tā Mason Durie, based on their mana and knowledge of Māori health and iwi leadership.Their task is to identify candidates to govern the interim Māori health authority, which was announced by the government in April.Members include U...

Learning how Māori ancestors

A unique festival, Te Hau Kōmaru, has been run this week in Tauranga to bring voyaging in waka hourua back to life.Locals and visitors are getting to go on-board four classic Māori replica double-hull canoes classed as waka hourua named Hinemoana, Tairāwhiti, Haunui, and Ngahiraka-mai-tawhiti, to learn about the history of travel to the thrill of many so far.They get to listen to crew members' stories of travelling around the world on these vessels and see how people live out o...

Oranga Tamariki survey

Almost one in four tamariki and rangatahi in state care don't feel they can contact their birth families as much as they would like to.The finding is from a Oranga Tamariki survey of more than 1500 children in care.The survey, Te Tohu o te Ora, is the first of its kind for the ministry and will be carried out annually. It is set out in the report Te Mātātaki.Ebony Flemming was taken into care at the age of five with her brother, and is now studying social work at university.She said going into...

PARENTING Child psychologist warns that maturity in children

An Australian psychologist is warning parents of children who act "mature for their age" that it can be a red flag for excess pressures at home. Dr Briony Leo, psychologist and Head of Coaching at relationship self-care app Relish, told Daily Mail Australia a number of factors can lead to high maturity levels in children, including personality traits and birth order.For example, the eldest child will often feel a sense of responsibility for their younger siblings. But she add...

Dame Cindy Kiro announced

New Zealand's next Governor-General will be Dame Cindy Kiro, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has revealed. The PM made the announcement at her weekly post-Cabinet press conference this afternoon, where she was joined by Kiro. Kiro used to be the Children's Commissioner and has extensive experience working with Government. She also has a lengthy academic background and was appointed as a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DNZM) for services to child wellbeing and education in th...

Māori high school students

Five winning students have walked away with scholarships worth up to $20,000 each to work towards their desired universities.Te Ara a Kupe Beaton Scholarship was founded in 2017 to encourage young Māori representation on the global stage, to push social equity initiatives and for Māori students to make a lasting impact on the global community.It includes personalised mentoring and education services to help students get accepted into their dream course at their dream university – be it compu...

Ground-breaking Māori presenter Oriini Kaipara

Oriini Kaipara, who made history in 2019 as the first woman with a moko kauae to read a major news bulletin, has moved to Three with a presenting role on Newshub Live at 4.30pm.She replaces Susie Nordqvist, who went in the opposite direction in January when she moved to TVNZ to host A Current Affair.Apart from appearing as a fill-in for TVNZ 1’s midday news bulletin, Kaipara worked on the state broadcaster’s te reo news show Te Karere. She previously worked at M...

Top NZ roots reggae band Katchafire

This year's waiata anthems participants include Kiwi favourite Katchafire with their hit song 100 or what can now be called Karawhiua.Waiata Anthems started in 2019 as a music project by Hinewehi Mohi to support NZ musicians to embrace te reo Māori in their work. This time around it has become a documentary series.Katchafire were among seven artists selected for the 2021 documentary series, alongside household names like Che Fu, Bic Runga, Annie Crummer and rangatahi favourites Drax Project and...

'It can be done':

Revitalising te reo Māori will require hunger, commitment and demand time, but it’s not impossible.That’s one of many wise words spoken by Sir Tīmoti Kāretu at a Māori language symposium held in Te Tauihu-o-te-waka-a-Māui (the top of the south) on Wednesday and Thursday.The symposium was opened by Kiley Nēpia, pouahurea (cultural advisor) of Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, to an audience of more than 450 people who had gathered to hear the stories and value of language re...

Draft history curriculum misses

This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and is republished with permission. An expert panel has criticised Aotearoa New Zealand's Histories curriculum draft for omitting topics, including women, labour and economics, and the single largest block of the country's human history - the 600 years of pre-European Māori life.In a report on the draft version of Aotearoa New Zealand's Histories curriculum, the panel convened by the Royal Society of New Zealand to advise...