a wāhine takeover full of heated debate, outdoor classrooms, and Wellywood taniwha 🔥.
Nau mai, hoki mai ki e te whānau,
With International Women’s Day approaching, we’re excited to be placing our female creators front and centre i tēnei wiki/this week.
Coming up… media to feed your soul, one of the fiercest wānanga/debates in modern Māoridom, and the new platform that’s helping wāhine Māori to achieve their tūmanako/dreams.
Behold… the ihi, the wehi, the wana of mana wāhine!
Should wāhine be able to speak on the marae?
Kimiora Kaire-Melbourne visits matriarchs of te ao Māori to ask their whakaaro/opinion—and while they may not be on the paepae, it’s clear these wāhine toa aren’t lacking skill when it comes to debate.
Kia rite/Prepare to feel like a tennis ball as each lays their case.
Merata Mita is hard to disagree with, heoi Turuhira Hare’s got one strong backhand whakahoki/reply…
The only thing we’re sure of is that you need to hear every opinion in this piece before you make up your own mind.
Find it: on facebook
Time: 19mins
Cost: free
The Māori kupu/word ‘tututarakihi’ refers to the sound cicadas make at the end of summer—a tohu/signal that a new season is approaching.
In this podcast Rangimarie Pomare, tumuaki/principal of Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Tututarakihi, explains what this next season entails for their kura/school; a ‘new’ education system fully based on tikanga Māori—maramataka aligned terms, te taiao/natural ‘classrooms’, and all.
As in all her interviews celebrating wāhine and their achievements, media legend, Qiane Matata-Sipu provides kind and sharp direction for the kōrero, allowing Rangimarie to safely get deep, and us lucky flies on the wall to benefit.
Find it: on Spotify
Time: 45mins
Cost: free with your account
Although Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington is one of the most well-known tāone/cities of Aotearoa, many of us still don’t know the story of its two taniwha; Ngake and Wātaitai.
This Arts Festival, the Dream Girls Art Collective—a collab of uber talented female artists Mirima Grace-Smith, Xoë Hall, and Gina Kiel—is remedying that with a characteristically out-the-gate creation.
The Taniwha Time Machine is an epic 25m contemporary art installation of Ngake and Whātaitai on the Wellington waterfront that highlights their pūrākau/story and visualises their heartfelt reunion.
It’ll all make perfect sense when you check it out.
Find it: on the Welly waterfront or their instagram page
Time: 2mins
Cost: free
Menstruation, menopause, feeling invisible as you age, the writer’s haerenga/journey, expectations of motherhood, the experiences of Indian women on the plantations in Fiji, entrepreneurship, mātauranga Māori, why you shouldn’t swim in hot springs when you’re hapū, art, earrings, money…
Awa Wahine is one of the very few magazines covering kaupapa that will actually leave you/your mā/sis/friend feeling better at the end of it.
The beautiful imagery, thick tactile pages, intelligent wānanga, and wairua-uplifting insights are best enjoyed with a cuppa in a shaft of afternoon sunlight wearing your comfiest kākahu/clothes, appropriate snacks within reach.
Find it: on the Awa Wahine website
Time: an hour or so
Cost: $35 or $30 if you subscribe
It’s not only the stories and photography in this pukapuka that are incredible—its publication and success serves as an epic in itself.
Qiane Matata-Sipu broke ground in 2022 when NUKU became the only self-published pukapuka/book to make the shortlist in the prestigious Ockham NZ Book Awards.
Reprint after reprint have shocked traditional big-gun publishers up and down the motu. If you’re interested in Māori culture, this should absolutely be on your shelf.
Ia wiki, ia wiki Amy McLean, writer, podcaster, creator, and founder of Te Kāinga Wahine, meets with wāhine Māori to help them to grow and achieve their version of success through kōrero groups, wānanga, workshops, events, and 1:1 coaching sessions.
We’ve all heard of things like this but many of us wonder - what ACTUALLY happens in them? Do you have to speak fluent Māori to get in? Does everyone wear pink blazers and have ‘Boss Babe’ zoom backgrounds? Could it truly help me/my mā/sis/mate or will it be like the networking drinks I went to last Thursday (read; horrific).
We asked Amy what happens in a 1:1 coaching session. As a previous client and colleague, Lizzie has some experience.
Coaching is actually a process led by the Coachee. My role as a Coach isn’t to tell you the answers (like a Mentor or Trainer would) but to allow you the space to find your own answers.
No one knows your world better than you do, so I really believe my role is one of supporting you through the process with intentional questions, rather than guiding the outcomes.
Tuatahi, I love the idea of reframing ‘goals’ into ‘decisions’. Goals are a hope for the future. Decisions are commitment.
Tuarua, breaking them down into daily actions is more achievable.
I might not be able to buy a home tomorrow, but I can take one daily action that will inch me further towards it today. Achieving our biggest aspirations is a culmination of many small actions taken repetitively.
For wāhine Māori, we often wear many hats - we might be working, a mum or aunty, a daughter, granddaughter, sibling, all with whānau responsibilities, not to mention community responsibilities. We seem to have mastered the act of juggling - or at least we try telling ourselves so.
Women have been socialised into roles of service, care and giving to others across society. We’re not only juggling this social construction, but also our own cultural belief systems as wāhine Māori. Think imposter syndrome and intergenerational systems.
A common kōrero is the spectrum of not being Māori enough to being too Māori - these stories we’ve been told intergenerationally, that feed into how we are in the world today.
Zoom out - take a look at other areas of your life where you naturally feel confident. What can you draw from those situations?
Maybe it’s a good support network - family, friends, community, a coach.
Maybe it’s a particular habit or routine that gets you through.
Find the transferable systems that you already know work for you, and use them as you learn, grow and evolve in other areas of your life.
Subscribe to her free newsletter, ‘At the Tēpu’ here >
Book in for a free, no obligations, kōrero to find out more about Te Kāinga Wāhine here >
Or dive right in and become a member of Te Kāinga Wāhine here >
