Actualising transformational change in Te Tairāwhiti
The initiative was co-designed with wāhine from Ngā Wāhine Māori Toko i Te Ora – Te Tairāwhiti (Māori Women’s Welfare League – Te Tairawhiti (MWWL)) during the initial phase of our collaboration. Using their lived voice to understand their aspirations. The co-design session used Te Whare Tapa Wha framework to record their aspirations. Te Whare Tapa Wha a framework designed by Sir Mason Durie acknowledges that there are four facets to achieving ora. Using Māori frameworks like maramataka dn Te Whare Tapa Wha to guide our prototype has been key to how we have created, pivoted and supported this kaupapa to build the adaptative capacity of our wāhine.
Our wāhine have shared their lived realities and have made the Healthy Families East Cape team aware of the challenges facing our local health system and how this impacts on their health their whānau and community. It has been a year since Healthy Families East Cape began our collaboration with our Kaupapa partners, MWWL. Kaupapa Wellbeing has been able to refresh MWWL’s activation of leadership in our communities and within our iwi, hapu and whānau. MWWL have been activating leadership since their establishment 1951, and the partnership is about uplifting the adaptive capacity of the community in the direction of greater strength.
Healthy Families East Cape have recently presented the second taha, te taha hinengaro, which includes:
The Whare whare tapa wha – activities card
The Maramataka reflective journal
More information and strategies to achieve better sleep habits
Affirmation cards that drew inspiration from the maramataka
We also able to collect data thorough our evaluation forms that indicated early indicators of success. Which supports that the collective wellbeing approach is creating a greater impact with the wāhine and their whānau and community.
Mindset behaviours also indicate that using a holistic and Māori framework approach to health and wellbeing is proving successful.
Our data showed that 80% of the wāhine completed the Te Taha Tinana resource, by writing in their maramataka reflection journal, using the sleep dial to understand the amount of hours sleep they need and completing their te whare whare tapa wha activity card. 93.7% from the original group received Te Taha Hinengaro resources with a few absences in the second regional hui due to the weather conditions. In the following weeks, those who didn’t attend the hui have now completed te taha tinana and started te taha hinengaro.
Key learnings for the team, is to connect and provide more support to our wāhine in between the regional meetings. Team reflections have played a beneficial role in ensuring that we remain focused on what is best for the kaupapa and our back boning approach. With the increased capacity and capability in the team we have hosted a pop-in session during the week attended by six wāhine.
We have continued to use the dedicated Kaupapa Wellbeing Facebook page post content specifically around the maramataka phases and what activities are suitable during these times. Our communications team have produced five videos about the maramataka phases , these videos are designed to give our wāhine more knowledge on how they can use the maramataka in their everyday lives. These videos have also been socialised across our other Healthy Families East Cape platforms, Tik Tok yielding the most engagement.
We acknowledge that some of our wāhinedon’t use social media, alongside creating content for Facebook we have created four E-Panui in aligned with each of the
marama phases to a distribution of 28 wāhine. For those who don’t use email we have been able to utilise our pop-in sessions to connect and clarify the resources. Alongside our wāhine our team is participating in each of the taha this allows us to test and pivot when required.
From a systems thinking perspective, we know that advancing equity by shifting the conditions that hold a problem in place. Together with our kaupapa partners we work to influence these conditions at all of levels of the system in order to improve the health and wellbeing of our people.
Relationships have been key to this approach, acknowledging that many of our wāhine hold influential positions within regional and national organisations. The Healthy Families East Cape team also attended the Māori Women’s Welfare League National Conference held in Rotorua earlier last month. Tomairangi Higgins, Manager addressed the forum detailing our approach and Kaupapa wellbeing prototype.
Ngā wāhine toko i te ora - Te Tairāwhiti at the Māori Women's Welfare League National Conference 2023
What is exciting is that we were able to hear and see the enthusiasm for Kaupapa Wellbeing. MWWL National team work with a number of system partners at local and regional level, they have the relationships to influence real change at many levels. Adding to our depth and reach of our solution eco- system. The conference was attended by 130 branches from around Aotearoa as well as branches from Perth, Northern Queensland, New South Whales and the Gold Coast. The team was able to see first-hand what MWWL action through the longest running Māori organisation. They advocate for Maori women and their whanau, promote and support Maori women to find their voice and use it, develop partnerships with other organisations who align with our goals, engage in positive initiatives ,advocate for indigenous women all over the world, hold the government to account to uphold the Te Tiriti o Waitangi and believe in the potential of us all.