Anyone watching recent television coverage of the attempt by Oranga Tamariki to remove a new-born baby from its young Maori mother in Hawke’s Bay Hospital must have been as appalled as we were. Especially wrong was an apparent failure of Oranga Tamariki to involve the very strong tribal leadership of the local area to assist […]
Let’s Deal With It: A Trans-Tasman Campaign Towards Racial Equity
June 19, 2019 by Leave a Comment
On Friday 14 June we went to this conference organised by Shakti New Zealand and Australia. Shakti had done an outstanding job in bringing together leaders from a wide range of organisations to talk about how we can move forward in dealing with white supremacist thinking and community and organisational racism. The first step is […]
“Inside keeping the silence of peace at Parihaka”
June 19, 2019 by Leave a Comment
This title of a lecture by Maata Wharehoka comes from her lived experience of Parihaka for more than thirty years, since she arrived, newly-married to one of the local people. She has become one of their highly respected kuia. The occasion was one of a series of lectures organised at the Auckland campus of the […]
Tanya’s Tale
June 19, 2019 by 1 Comment
Midwinter approaching. Cabin fever creeping up on me in the apartment. Yearning to smell the sweet fragrance of the damp forest…so I contacted my old tramping friend, Steph, and we decided to take off to Maungatautari, near Arapuni, 3 hours drive south of Auckland. www.sanctuarymountain.org.nz Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari is a remarkable mainland ecological island protected […]
Marks of Mana
June 19, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Lisa Taouma is a film maker and TV website producer of great skill. //www.nzonscreen.com/person/lisa-taouma Her recent film release, Marks of Mana, screened in the Doc Edge film festival, documents the involvement of women in Tatau, the art of tatooing, throughout the Pacific. This is a beautiful film, showing women both giving and receiving tatau, […]
.SAME BUT DIFFERENT!
May 24, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Another film worth seeing! A very feel-good film- funny, romantic and true- a real-life love story between two women – Rachel (Pakeha), and Nikki (Samoan)- the two have been together for some years now, and decided that their own story was a good one to make into a film, with two other great women playing […]
Memorable in May..
May 20, 2019 by Leave a Comment
What a wealth of experiences and ideas we have shared during this last month… We’ve had new films released of special interest to people in Aotearoa, and the Auckland Writers’ Festival, as well as a particularly lovely autumn of long sunny days and lavish leaf fall….hope you enjoy some of these experiences and follow up […]
First, in film..
May 20, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Merata Mita: How my mother decolonised the screen This is a superb film- profoundly moving, powerful and a worthy tribute to one of Aotearoa’s most remarkable women. We remember Merata’s film Mauri (the first feature film written and directed by a Maori woman), and some of her documentaries about the emergence of Maori sovereignty, Bastion […]
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