April 15, 2013
Fabulous Whānau Ora Day
Opinion: It's not often we are able to activate our Māori community but last Saturday proved to be an exception, a crowd of 4000-plus attended the National Urban Maori Authorities – NUMA's first Whānau Ora celebration day at Ngā Whare Waatea Marae in Mangere.
NUMA is a collective of Urban Māori Authorities around the country and the two Auckland ones are the Manukau Urban Māori Authority or MUMA and the Waipareira Trust in West Auckland. We are the biggest providers of Whānau Ora programmes in the country and have more than 1200 families.
We showcased all of our whānau ora services to our community, and our managers were on hand to provide advice to whanau seeking new and better ways of coping with the demands that come with low family incomes.
Whānau were able to find out more about Whānau Ora as well as our youth programmes, our kaumatua support and our Māori trade training programme that we run with Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
There was also big interest shown in our radio station Waatea, our Waatea Funeral Service and the Māori Anglican Church. The Whānau Ora diploma that Waipareira is offering also attracted huge interest.
The day was well supported by some of our finest musicians like Che Fu, Moana and Young Sid who played for half their normal rate to support the kaupapa, but the biggest highlight was the speech from Whānau Ora Minister Tariana Turia who summed everything up when she said that "The kaupapa of Whānau Ora came from our communities and was born out of our aspirations for the future of our kids".
Whānau Ora places family at the centre of this kaupapa and the NUMA Whānau Ora Day was a testament to the success of this approach.
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