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Papua New Guinea’s prime minister has come away from New Zealand favourably impressed with what a West Auckland Māori trust is doing to manage social problems and develop its people.
Te Whānau ō Waipareira made contact with senior members of the PNG leadership and with it joined a trade delegation to the island nation earlier this year.
Last week as part of a state visit to New Zealand, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, members of his cabinet and several regional governors stopped off at Waipareira’s Whānau House in Henderson to be briefed in its work in health, education, justice, welfare and economic development.
Mr O’Neill says urban migration and a fast-growing young population is creating challenges for his country, and Waipareira shows the way communities can look after each other in such situations.
"We find we’re losing track of all our traditions and customary ways of life and I believe that such community programmes established in many of our suburbs throughout our cities will make sure there is a cohesiveness within the people originally from the same tribal areas in our very diverse country," he says.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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