Te Putahitanga takes lessons from tough year

Photo: Te Putahitanga o Te Waipounamu.

Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waiponamu chair Tā Mark Solomon says COVID-19 has been a valuable test of whānau ora as a delivery and enabling mechanism.

The South Island commissioning agency has released its 2019-2020 annual report, showing it worked with almost 180 community and non-government organisations and funded more than 80 navigators.

Tā Mark says during the lockdown it gave direct assistance to more than 4200 whānau, a third of them Ngāi Tahu, the rest of the other iwi and Pākehā.

"We have to open our doors for everyone and we should but it was amazing that roughly 73 per cent of the whānau that came to us did not have enough money to cover the cost of food. A huge proportion could not afford toiletry products. So there were lots of things that confronted us over that period and it's not finished. We've still got some hard times to come financially. As a nation we are in this for some time yet," he says.

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