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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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