Ngāti Hauā Mahi Trust
Breaking down the barriers to community wellbeing
Keri says, “Of the seven youth who successfully completed
the course, over half have found employment as a result.
That’s a huge result for an area where employment
opportunities are very scarce.”
Another way that the Trust creates employment
opportunities is through its native plant nursery and
riparian planting contracts.
“We offer a range of horticulture, arboriculture and
agribusiness courses from our depot,” says Keri. “Over the past
two years we’ve trained around 100 people. We currently
have 50,000 plants in our nursery, most of which are ready to
be planted out, and hold planting contracts for several of the
tributaries and rivers within our tribal boundaries, all of which
creates employment.”
These days the Trust services are available not only to
members of Ngāti Hauā, but also to anyone living within the
local community who needs them. The importance of work
is still a touchstone for the Trust, as is the understanding that
being able to connect with the environment is fundamental
for people’s and communities’ wellbeing.
Trust Waikato supports the Trust’s work, and donated $10,000
in 2014.
Employment, or the lack of it, is
one of the main reasons that the
Ngāti Hauā Mahi Trust was initially
established by Ngāti Hauā kaumatua
over 20 years ago.
“Our kaumatua were concerned that our people were being
forced to leave their land, families and communities to
find work, because nothing was available locally,” says Keri
Thompson, Trust General Manager.
It is a barrier that the Ngāti Hauā Mahi Trust works hard to
overcome, by enabling local people to take part in training
and employment opportunities, and to reconnect with and
work on the land. The Trust does this both by bringing the
opportunities to where the people are, and by helping them
get to where the opportunities are offered.
In 2014, the Trust organised for local youth to attend trade
training offered by Wintec. While the theoretical side of the
training was provided in Morrinsville, the practical side was
based in Hamilton and Cambridge. For the duration of the
course, Keri and a number of kaumātua, especially Reverend
Haki Wirihana, got up at dawn in order to drive the youth to
their work experience.
KAUMĀTUA
SUPPORT
$10,000
TRUST WAIKATO
DONATION 2014
100
TRAINED IN
NURSERY
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