Kia ora e te whānau,

It’s that time of the month again! We are excited to catch up about this April and share kōrero about what we’ve been doing out there.

Our Gisborne presentation of our ‘Undiscovered’ Production is done and dusted and after many requests, we have organised an ENCORE show specially for our Napier whānau and friends. We are super excited to perform for our community THIS FRIDAY!

So grab a kaputī, get comfortable, and join us as we reflect on Āpereira.

Mauri ora,
The Pakaru Pānui Team

At the beginning of the month, our crew went on a trip to Gisborne for our ‘Undiscovered’ Youth Production. We spent 4 days in Gisborne rehearsing and running some interactive workshops with some youth from Te Aka Ora Charitable Trust.

We facilitated a bunch of activities including Kī-o-Rahi, dance and kēmu Māori. As part of this, the youth learnt our group dance for the production. The following day we had our show at the Lawson Field Theatre. We had a full house and at the end, we invited the Gizzy rangatahi to the stage to perform the dance they learnt with us.

When we had our debrief, the highlight of the trip for many of our peers was spending time with the Gisborne youth.

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Unity Day

Unity Day is an annual event held by the Napier Pilot City Trust. This year our MokoBoys had the honour of being the MC’s and performers. The theme of the day was ‘Ngā kōrero Pūrākau ka puawai te kotahitanga - Sharing stories of unity for a kinder and fairer Napier’.

There were three key speakers, Dr Jessica Berentson-Shaw, Dr Sally Rye (a.k.a Aunty Sally), and Denis O’Reilly who all talked about ways to create unity in our community through pūrākau.

Our MokoBoys and our Founder/Director Charlizza Matehe were privileged to receive Unity Day awards presented by the Mayor, Kirsten Wise, for their mahi in Ahuriri/Napier.

Overall, we had an awesome day lifting the spirits of the people doing hard work in our community.

We had Mates4LIfe come in and speak to some of our rangatahi leaders & kaimahi about suicide prevention. We do a lot of mental health mahi so it is important for us to always keep up to date with training to keep ourselves and other rangatahi in our programmes safe. They taught us some tools we can use as ‘connectors’ to help us with situations that we may be exposed to during our lifetime whether that is through mahi, school or even with our friends and whānau.

They had a few group activities for us to engage in such as learning how Moods, Appearance, Talk, Events and Support (MATES) could signal that someone is going through a tough time. We then went through how we could actively listen, understand and hopefully provide some support for the person experiencing these negative thoughts.

They made it a fun and engaging workshop. Thank you to the team for coming down. Your mahi is really important especially for us rangatahi!

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Have you heard? 👀

This is a section where we share some of the cool kaupapa going on around us.

Have you heard about ‘Rongo A Puku’

Rongo ā Puku services provide holistic support for individuals and whānau that are designed to help claim and reclaim Rangatiratanga (autonomy) over their well-being. It is an organisation run by a few of our aunties in Napier that focuses on the interconectivity between the gut and the brain. They specialise in traditional ways and methods of well-being blended with the latest research as an alternative to medication prescribed by GP’s.

Their mahi includes Rongoā kai (food and plants as medicine), wai rakau (cleansing, detoxing), mirimiri (massage), mauri tau (accessing different brain waves and frequencies), whakatau tinana (movement, stretch and impact), whakatau hinengaro (neuroplasticity, neuro semantics), pure (smudging, tapping, transcending, breathing) and ihirangaranga (sounds, vibrations).

To find more information visit their website: https://www.rongoapuku.com

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Whakataukī of the Month

Well e te whānau that is us for This month’s aperira whakataukī means “let us keep close not far apart’’! Don’t forget that we also have a monthly piece in the Tihei Kahungunu and Hawkes Bay Today. Follow the link to stay updated, otherwise…

Catch yous next month - DOITZ!

Proudly made in Kahungunu, our specialty organics not only offer natural care but also support our community. All proceeds from your purchase goes directly towards MokoBoys, a community initiative run by Toi Matarua that employs local youth in the Hawkes Bay region to provide free home care services to our elderly. Driven by community needs and entirely self-funded, the employment of these rangatahi is made possible by the sales of our Kawakawa balms through our social enterprise arm - ‘Māku’.