November 30, 2017
Te Arawa health league celebrates sisterhood
A roopu that has helped Te Arawa whanau take control of their health for 80 years is to be celebrated today with the release of a book and exhibition.
Autauhinera: Sisterhood – Legacies of the Te Arawa Women's Health League, will open in the Galleria of Rotorua Lakes Council.
One of the author’s, Dr Laurie Morrison, says the league was founded by district nurse Robina Cameron, known as Kamerana, in response to the problems she was seeing with preventable diseases.
"She got on board with all these old kuia and it was the kuia with the support of their tane and all the chiefs of the time who opened the door for them to start to discuss immunisaiton, sanitisation, maybe its not so good to have a whare with dirt floors, and in 1937 at Tunuhopu Marae they all come together, and it's been going ever since," she says.
The league's focus was the health of Maori women and children, and it worked through marae-based women's committees.
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