March 11, 2024
Letele takes Buttabean model to Maniapoto
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Ngāti Maniapoto post-settlement governance entity Te Nehenehenui has appointed south Auckland community leader David Letele to the board of its social arm.
The former boxer has developed a number of initiatives including his Buttabean Motivation exercise programme, food banks in south and west Auckland, and with his father Dave Letele senior a trust offering housing and support for former prisoners.
He says the new role has come from a visit he made to his ancestral Te Kopua marae on the banks of Waipa River near Te Awamutu.
“Tha same struggles we see in South Auckland and West Auckland, really any deprived area we work in, it’s happening down there but there’s just less support. We went down there for Christmas, took down a truck load of presents, food, then I said ‘I’ll be back.’ This is my way of coming back and everything we do up here, our model is the model that works and that’s what needs to be scaled and that’s what I’m looking at doing,” Mr Letele says.
Former Labour MP and minister Nanaia Mahuta from Te Kūiti Pā was appointed an independent director of Te Nehenehenui’s commercial board.