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Mahara Tatou: Whanau Ora: A Critical Engagement

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HE WHAKAARO HERE WHAKAUMU MŌ AOTEAROA: Revisited

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Mana Ririki

Link to website: Mana Ririki | Inspiring change for Tamariki...

FASD Support Group: Blockhouse Bay

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He Puapua report:

Concerns about the He Puapua report - on how to better uphold indigenous rights - are being dismissed by Minister for Māori Development Willie Jackson.Jackson has prepared a draft paper, setting out the next steps the government could take in response to He Puapua, which he says will go to Cabinet soon.He Puapua was handed to former minister for Māori development Nanaia Mahuta in 2019 and suggests the establishment of a separate Māori parliament or upper house an...

Why Māori women aren't accessing the healthcare they need,

Māori health professionals are hopeful the new Māori Health Authority will improve access to care for wāhine, one blaming colonisation for the inequities they face. The Government two weeks ago announced a major reform of the health system, getting rid of the 20 separate district health boards and setting up an agency focused on Māori health outcomes, which have long fallen behind that of other ethnicities. Māori women have it the worst of all, experts on a panel hosted ...

Don't play sick children off against each other -

Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft is warning Pharmac not to play one group of children with a life-threatening illness off against another.His comments come after RNZ revealed that Pharmac is likely to end the blanket provision of child cancer drugs.Pharmac says it has long viewed the special exemption for child cancer drugs as "inconsistent" but it was jolted into finally addressing the issue in response to a discrimination claim taken under the Human Rights Act.Patient advocate ...

Why whānau should be discussing

Money might be the last taboo topic, but entrepreneur Rachel Petero says lifting the veil on her and her partner’s finances have helped them on their quest to become debt-free.Petero, founder of consultancy Rise2025 and co-author of Take Your Space: Successful Women Share Their Secrets and husband John embarked on a two-year goal to eradicate all of their debt, including mortgages and about $50,000 worth of business debt. They found an expert to steer them on the right course, and re...

Smacking children doesn't work,

Participants in the study were members of the Christchurch Health and Development Study (CHDS) - a longitudinal study of 1,265 children, including 630 females, born in Christchurch over a four-month period during 1977. According to the Christchurch campus of Otago University, this cohort has been studied regularly from birth to age 40. The latest data, released today, shows the patterns of discipline used by 763 parents from the cohort between 2002 and 2017. Senior research fellow at the Christc...

Ardern acknowledges 'failings' in state care

The Prime Minister made the admission on Friday after the Waitangi Tribunal released the findings of an inquiry launched in October 2019 over concerns Māori children were significantly overrepresented in state care. The Waitangi Tribunal has told the Crown to step back and let Māori establish an independent Māori authority to overhaul Oranga Tamariki, the Government department that came under the spotlight after distressing child uplifts were caught on camera. "I have...

Waitangi Tribunal: Oranga Tamarki: Report

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Oranga Tamariki:

An independent Māori authority has been proposed by the Waitangi Tribunal to work out how to eliminate the need for tamariki Māori to be placed in state care, but it has stopped short of supporting the abolition of Oranga Tamariki.The tribunal held an urgent inquiry after Oranga Tamariki came under scrutiny for its removal practices of tamariki and pēpi Māori from their families, following an attempt to take a newborn baby from a teenage mother at Hawke's Bay Hospital in 2019.The hearin...

Māori teachers who fought school over te reo honorifics

Last month, Breakfast talked to Hawke's Bay student teachers Arihi Raiha Hutana and Rangi Mitchell, who during their school placements were both told they could not use the Māori titles matua and whaea in the classroom. The direct translation of the titles mean uncle and aunty, however they also have a greater significance and are a mark of respect to their culture and heritage. The pair were instead left with two options — to change their titles to Mr and Mrs or leave to train ...

Good intentions are not enough:

A challenging essay by Michaela Keeble on the problems of how Pākehā fiction presents and frames MāoriI read Lawrence Patchett's novel The Burning River when it first came out late in 2019.A year later, I’m brave enough to contribute to a public conversation about Pākehā writing, so that Māori don’t always have to do the work of responding, and so that Pākehā have access to an alternative perspective.Critiquing the fundamental decisions of a novel about identity makes a rev...

Māori and Pacific expertise

Māori and Pacific expertise is being excluded from advice and decision-making roles around science policy, according to a new report.Te Pūtahitanga: A Tiriti-led science-policy approach for Aotearoa New Zealand, states the exclusion has been particularly evident during the Covid-19 pandemic.Lead researcher Tracey McIntosh said because the impacts of Covid-19 are experienced differentially, the pandemic has revealed “deeply embedded inequities” in New Zealand.This report is lookin...

Boy with autism asks Children's Commissioner:

Judge Andrew Becroft intervened in the case after the boy, 13, wrote to him following his suspension for his involvement in a fight.The boy moved to the school last year as a directed enrolment, meaning the Ministry of Education ordered the school to enrol him after it initially refused.Becroft recently defended the rights of such children after the Principals' Federation suggested schools refuse to enrol them unless the ministry provided sufficient support to keep them and others...

Health advocates cautiously optimistic

Health NZ, a single national agency, will replace the country’s 20 DHBs as the Government promises a better and more equal standard of care.  An additional Māori health entity will sit alongside Health NZ. It aims to improve the health policies and funding available for Māori who statistically suffer from worse health. National remains critical of the changes, with the party’s health spokesperson Shane Reti saying the shift would create a “two-tier” health system. The party, thoug...

Report: Māori youth more likely to die than non-Māori

A new report has found Māori youth aged between 15 and 18 years old three times more likely to die in the 30 days following major trauma than non-Māori in the same age group.The Perioperative Mortality Review Committee (POMRC) is now calling for District Health Boards to conduct an in-depth review into all cases of major trauma resulting in hospitalisation.POMRC member Dr Dick Ongley says the reviews must consider the role of implicit bias and institutional racism, after the report found Māor...

First it was fighting for land,

It’s a fact it takes one generation to lose a language and at least three to get it back, Kiley Nēpia, pou ahurea (cultural advisor), of Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō said.One of the ways Te Tauihu-o-te-waka-a-Māui iwi are making sure that doesn’t happen again is by organising a Māori language symposium called, Te Kaiaotanga o te Reo, the first ever to be held at the top of the South Island.“Language, culture, identity, they’re all linked together, and we want our children t...

Ridiculed South African rugby team

A South African university rugby team are defending their use of the All Blacks haka after they were ridiculed for performing it this week.Walter Sisulu University, from East London in the Eastern Cape, performed ‘Kapa o Pango' before their opening Varsity Shield match against Durban University of Technology at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria.A video of it went viral and prompted a backlash on social media. It was labelled “disrespectful”, “embarrassing”, “in poor taste”, “an insult ...

Colonisation took away opportunity

A Manawatū iwi has told a Waitangi Tribunal of how colonisation stripped away the use of te reo, a crucial part of Māori culture, in the area.The Manawatū ki Porirua inquiry continued at Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom in Foxton on Wednesday, where submitters spoke about the state of te reo Māori and education since colonisation.This week of hearings is about the area around Foxton, but is part of the Ngāti Raukawa iwi treaty claim on the historical purchase of about 130,000 hectares of land betwee...

Māori stories and language

Huia Publishers has been a trailblazer for publishing for 30 years, committed to providing a platform for Māori voices and perspectives.Robyn Bargh founded the business in 1991, when the publishers of the time weren’t producing the books she wanted to read, the books that spoke to her experience as Māori.Since then, the Māori-led business has produced more than 1000 books in te reo Māori, and thousands more fiction and non-fiction titles written in English.When Huia first began, books that...

Wahine Māori farmer

Originally published by Māori Television.Bringing a tikanga Māori perspective to dairy farming, while encouraging more wāhine Māori into the sector - that's the approach of Chevon Horsford, a finalist for the 2021 Fonterra Dairy Woman of the Year award.Horsford was one of three finalists for the award and said she was inspired by the way her tipuna managed the land in a sustainable way and believed those principles and techniques could be applied to modern farming, especially on whenua Māor...

New Maori program

A new project currently in development is establishing a Te Ao Maori Localised Curriculum for all 67 Tauranga Moana schools, early childhood centres and the wider community in partnership with Tauranga Moana Iwi. The project, called Te Tai Whanake ki Tauranga Moana, will be a first for New Zealand, bringing all Tauranga Moana Iwi and schools together in a unique and enduring way. The Te Ao Maori Local Curriculum will encompass foundational Te Reo, our Tikanga, stories and history, and will ...

'Insult to Māori':

A South African university rugby side have been slammed on social media after performing a haka before their opening match of the Varsity Shield.Walter Sisulu University, nicknamed the All Blacks, performed their rendition of the All Blacks haka Kapa O Pango against the Rhinos, with the video since going viral online.But fans were not impressed."As a Kiwi this is really in poor taste. The Haka belongs to the Māori people. Very disrespectful by this team to think it's okay to use it for themselv...