July 01, 2014
New dawn for Whanau Ora
The chair of one of the three new Whanau Ora commissioning agencies says she looks forward to identifying and funding programmes that can help whanau take control of their lives.
Te Pou Matakana, which is the agency for the North Island, starts work today.
Merepeka Raukawa-Tait says it has assembled a high quality governance board and will call on an advisory panel which has expertise in sectors such as health, education and social services.
She says Whanau Ora Minister Tariana Turia wants funding, services and solutions moved closer to whanau, and Te Pou Matakana intends to deliver on that.
"With good support whanau can determine for themselves what life might be like.
A lot of whanau have issues in their lives that with good support, good understanding of what they can do to move themselves to a better place, they need to have that opportunity, so we want to make sure the whanau is in the centre of everything we do in the future in terms of providing support for them," she says.
Mrs Raukawa Tait says Te Pou Matakana intends to ensure the programmes it funds are relevant, appropriate and based on hard data.
Te Pou Matakana's independent directors also include economist Suzanne Snively, former Fisheries Commission chief executive Robin Hapi, academic Tania Rangiheuea and iwi leaders’ representative Pahia Turia.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH MEREPEKA RAUKAWA TAIT CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MTk2Mzg=
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