January 17, 2022
Uenuku Festival launches at Rainbows End tonight
Five hundred children and their whānau are being treated to Rainbows End tonight.
It’s the launch of Uenuku Festival, a vaccination programme by Te Kopu an organisation established by the late Dame Ngāneko Minhinnick in 2004.
Lead of the Uenuku Festival Lisa Minhinnick says the key message of the festival is to get our tamariki protected before they go back to school.
“South Auckland is close to the border and the airport as well as experiencing challenging socio-economic factors. It makes the children of South Auckland highly vulnerable to new variants”, says Minhinnick.
They aim to vaccinate 20,000 tamariki in South Auckland.
She says Te Kopu’s focus has been with whānau and tamariki well-being throughout the Covid rollout in partnership with their iwi partners. They distributed over 6,700 education, hygiene and care packs during levels three and four. Part of their work included supporting whānau to get vaccinated.
Minhinnick says they wanted to help to protect their whanau so they came at it from a tamariki perspective. The messages were like “get vaccinated mum & dad so we can go to the rugby.”
The Uenuku Festival is supported through Tahuna Pa Marae, Mahi Pai, Rainbows End, Made to Move a dance group and Te Kopu Inc. Other organisations are expected to come on board.