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NZMA sign off Sustainable Māori trades training

A new trades and training campus will be set up at Auckland's Hoani Waititi Marae to help more Māori and Pasifika into skills-based education.Representatives from both Hoani Waititi and trades and training agencies met at the marae to formalize the partnership.The plan for the facility comes after NZMA recorded a 320 percent hike in trades enrolments and a need for more education pathways for Māori and Pasifika.Education options from early childhood to Tertiary level are already available at H...

Research reveals Māori and Pasifika

The study, Glass ceilings in New Zealand Universities: Inequities in Māori and Pacific promotions earnings, was led by Dr Tara McAllister at the research centre Te Pūnaha Matatini and published in Mai Journal today.It builds on previous research which found that only 4 percent of New Zealand professors are Māori and Pasifika make up only 1 percent.This new study, which examined the promotions and earnings of 17,174 academics from all eight New Zealand universities between ...

Children's Commissioner calls for action

Child poverty advocates are calling for action after a new report revealed one in every five children in New Zealand is living in income poverty - and COVID-19 could make it worse.The Child Poverty Monitor released their annual report on Wednesday in partnership with the Office of the Children's Commissioner, the JR McKenzie Trust and Otago University.The data reveals that over 13 percent or 150,000 of Kiwi children experience material hardship. This means they live in households unable to affor...

Auckland park first to get bilingual signage

The renaming of Crum Park in Titirangi to Tahurangi/Crum Park marks the start of a joint venture between the local iwi, Te Kawerau a Maki and Auckland Council, through a programme called Te Kete Rukuruku.The programme aims to restore indigenous place names throughout local parks in Tamaki Makaurau, as a way of sharing traditional indigenous knowledge and storytelling.Tahurangi/Crum Park is the first of 23 parks to have signs in both te reo Māori and English.Link to article: Auckland park f...

Davis demands formal review

Oranga Tamariki has been asked to carry out an internal investigation into an uplift after officials failed to satisfy the Children's Minister's demands for an explanationChildren’s Minister Kelvin Davis has ordered Oranga Tamariki to conduct a formal case review of the uplift documented in a Newsroom investigation, after officials gave him unsatisfactory explanations for the actions displayed. News of the ministerial demand comes after a High Court judge ordered Newsroom to remove a...

Carers:

Numerous foster carers have contacted Newsroom since our investigation last week highlighted a change in the children's ministry policy to take back tamariki from even 'forever care'Oranga Tamariki’s change in policy to place tamariki back with whānau and Iwi has prompted a flood of messages from foster carers saying the way the agency is activating this legislation is far from child centred and is like being at the end of a swinging pendulum.Newsroom’s latest investigation O...

Māori Language Commission

The Māori Language Commission has welcomed Stuff's “new, courageous direction” following the release of its project Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono.Over several months, about 20 journalists and a production team reviewed 160 years’ worth of reporting, and on Monday, Stuff issued a public apology for the way the organisation has portrayed Māori and Māori issues.In a statement, the Māori Language Commission has welcomed the unprecedented, new direction taken by t...

Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono:

Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono is a Stuff project investigating the history of racism. Part one has focused on Stuff and its newspapers, and how we have portrayed Māori. Georgia Weaver looks at the history of the Southland Times and the challenge from mana whenua.Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu is putting its people back on the Southland map, helping to make their presence visible again across our landscape.It is cultural mapping of Māori place names, their meanings and connection to ...

Kelvin Davis and Oranga Tamariki:

Link to article: Kelvin Davis and Oranga Tamariki: 'There will be a handover of power to Māori' - NZ Herald...

Oranga Tamariki -

The service has not got much credit for the good outcomes for many of the children brought to its attention. There must have been many successes but the overall impression has been that the agency can't get a thing right. Maybe it just goes with the territory.Very quickly the narrative is changing. Now we hear the agency has a shocking record of removing Māori babies from their mothers and not exploring ways and means of helping the mothers keep their babies, or allowing the wider whānau to pr...

Most memorable books of 2020:

Link to article: Most memorable books of 2020: Māori wisdom, art, anger and apocalypse - NZ Herald...

Oranga Tamariki 'will not get it right' until power sits with Māori

The new Assistant Māori Children's Commissioner is questioning how much longer New Zealand will tolerate Oranga Tamariki not providing care to children.In an interview with Newshub Nation on Saturday, Glenis Philip-Barbara said Aotearoa is "waking up" to the fact that Māori  have solutions not only for their own social issues but for the country as a whole - and it's time Oranga Tamariki got with the program.She says the organisation has had problems for three decades, and it's time for t...

Oranga Tamariki

Since the release of a Newsroom Investigates video showing Oranga Tamariki uplifting children from their carers after two and a half years, Newsroom has been inundated by stories from other foster parents and caregivers who have been affected by the agency’s practices.A foster parent* who experienced similar treatment to the family in this Newsroom Investigates video says she feels broken-hearted watching the documentary because it feels all too familiar.Oranga Tamariki placed a child into her...

‘Two wrongs

The sad tale of four young children placed 'forever' in the care of two foster parents, but after a change of policy at Oranga Tamariki finding themselves taken from their home again into a new and unknown world. Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner report.“I told you I’d find you a new place to live. This is your forever home. You’ll never have to leave again.”It was March 8, 2018 and these were the words of an Oranga Tamariki social worker to three little girls sitting in the lounge of their...

Kelvin Davis to

Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis has asked Oranga Tamariki to “please explain” its actions after a Newsroom investigation into Māori children being taken away from Pākehā foster parents who had provided them with a permanent home.Davis told Newsroom he had watched most of the video - a change from his predecessor Tracey Martin, who refused to watch a previous Newsroom investigation into a child uplift - and had already called Oranga Tamariki officials into his office on T...

Oranga Tamariki chief

There are strong signals the chief executive of the children's ministry's time in charge is over, just days after another damning report on its 'unfixable' failings. The head of Oranga Tamariki, Grainne Moss, is believed to be leaving the role after a year of widespread controversy and public inquiries into her ministry's unlawful uplifts of Māori children.Moss, who has been in the job for four years after suddenly departing her previous role in the private sector, had the support of ...

Social workers 'hated' no matter what -

I te tuatahi – he mihi He mihi tēnei ki ngā tamariki mokopuna katoa o te whenua nei – mā mātou ngā pakeke katoa, rātou, ko tēnei reanga me ngā reanga ki te heke mai, e whakaruruhau.(An acknowledgement of all the children in our land – it is for all adults, all of us, to protect them and the generations to come.) – Joel Maxwell, Stuff.A new Office of the Children’s Commissioner report on Oranga Tamariki calls for the state to loosen control of care for at-risk Māori children �...

Auckland Council relationships with urban Māori

There are fresh calls for Māori seats at Auckland Council, a decade after the supercity was formed.It comes as requirement for public polls when creating Māori seats looks like it will be removed.The Royal Commission that recommended the amalgamation in November 2010 also proposed Māori seats be part of the new council.While Māori seats in the new supercity were scrapped, an Independent Māori Statutory Board (IMSB) was established to promote issues significant to Māori and ensure...

Mindfulness: A tangata whenua response

Video: Mindfulness for children | Jase Te Patu | TEDxWellington - YouTubeLink to the website: Home | M3 Mindfulness for Children...

'It's time to have a courageous conversation with Māori'

A new draft document that lays out a bold strategy for the Hamilton City Council to engage and substantially strengthen its relationship with Māori has been given an enthusiastic thumbs-up by the city’s politicians.And arguably the most enthusiastic is mayor Paula Southgate, who has hailed He Pou Manawa Ora - Pillars of Wellbeing as “a starting point for the courageous conversations that we have been saying we need to have for some time”.However not all the councillors at Tuesda...

Māori wards advocate urges Northlanders not to vote

A leading New Zealand Māori wards advocate is calling on Northlanders not to sign Democracy Northland's poll demand against these special council areas."Signing will simply mean becoming part of something that's taking away the right of Māori to have a place at the table," Andrew Judd, a former New Plymouth District Council (NPDC) Mayor, said.Former Northland Regional Council (NRC) deputy chairman John Bain's Democracy Northland's campaign aims to get more than 6500 signatures demanding a poll...

Glenis Philip-Barbara:

Andrew Becroft has been the Children’s Commissioner over the last four years and has been an enlightened and energetic advocate for the welfare of kids who are having it tough. Many, too many, are Māori, and he’s been keen for the office to have the insights and expertise of a Māori Commissioner too.That expertise and loads of relevant experience have now arrived in the form of Glenis Philip-Barbara. She came through Gisborne Girls’ High in the 1980s, married Nick Barbara and raised...

Former minister for children Tracey Martin takes aim

Former minister for children Tracey Martin says the current calibre of social workers at Oranga Tamariki is not good enough.Martin made the comments in reflection of last year's controversial video of Oranga Tamariki workers attempting to uplift a newborn baby from its mother at Hawke's Bay Hospital's maternity unit.She said the video highlighted that there is both really good social worker practice and really lousy social worker practice in this country."We've got 16 providers, there's a huge v...

Majority of southern Māori

More than half of the Southland and Otago combined Māori population can speak no more than a few words of te reo, according to Stats NZ.Te Kupenga, a 2018 survey which interviewed almost 8500 people of Māori descent, was released on Monday, and revealed that 62.1 per cent of the Māori population could speak no more than a few words or phases.It was the lowest percentage out of all regions identified with 51.5 per cent of the Māori population nationally surveyed could not speak more than a fe...

Māori Party leaders write to PM

Accusing Jacinda Ardern of disrespecting Māori by forming a government before special votes were counted, the new Māori Party leaders will this week ask for talks with Labour.It is a short walk for Debbie Ngarewa-Packer next week; out the front door of the Supreme Court, across busy Lambton Quay and up the sweeping driveway to Parliament House.But to get there, she and her Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi have come a long way.From seeking to rebuild their communities – South Tarana...