Hikitia Te Tai Tokerau

15/04/2026

Nau mai, haere mai e te whānau!

13/04/2026

Let's do this again whanau ma!
Nau mai haere mai ki Te Pokapu Community Hauora Hub tomorrow morning at 10.30am to join Cleon Samuels and the Oranga Kai Te Tai Tokerau crew for six weeks of learning how to create scrumptious, whanau-friendly hakari on a budget for you and your family.

See you there!

Send a message to learn more

06/04/2026

🥕🍓 Oranga Kai – Healthy kai on a budget! 🍲🌽

Nau mai, e te whānau! Join us every Tuesday for a hands‑on Oranga Kai wānanga with Cleon Samuels 👩🏽‍🍳👨🏽‍🍳

🗓 Tuesdays from April 13th
⏰ 10.30am – 1.00pm
📍Te Pokapū Community Hub
👉🏽 workshop | 6 weeks | h**e utu
Together we’ll:
🥗 Learn to prepare kai ora that’s healthy and budget‑friendly
🍲 Cook kai your whānau will love
🥫 Ako ki te tiaki kai – learn how to preserve food
🌮 From one‑pot meals to snacks, dips & finger foods
✨ what you want to learn – that’s what we’ll cook!

📞 Kia whiwhi pai ai ngā whakaritenga, and to register:

👸🏽Cleon Samuels
📱 021 240 3752
📧 cleon.samuels@whaingaroa.iwi.nz

Nau mai, haere mai – come learn, share kai, and fill your kete 🧺💚

🍎🥬🥕

Send a message to learn more

29/03/2026

At Kāeo Primary School, a deliberate shift is reshaping how tamariki learn, relate, and understand themselves. The kura is placing the stories of tūpuna at the centre of the curriculum, not as an add-on, but as the foundation for teaching, behaviour and identity.

Principal Kaiya Lafotanoa says this approach is about reclaiming narrative and grounding learning in place.

“They're not made-up stories. It’s our history. It’s part of our whenua, it’s who we are,” she says.

By teaching local pūrākau, from the Kāeo River to tūpuna like Taratara and Maungataniwha, the school is on a journey towards strengthening its sense of belonging and connection to the environment for its 150 students on the roll.

Rather than relying solely on rules, the kura is also wanting to use pūrākau to guide behaviour and decision-making. Students will be taught to reflect on the actions of their tūpuna, with conversations grounded in values like respect, responsibility, and collective wellbeing.

While the kura has only just started on its journey, the impact is already beginning to be seen across the school. Tamariki are stepping into roles as kaitiaki, relationships are strengthening, and behaviour is shifting in meaningful ways.

For Kāeo Primary School, embedding pūrākau into everyday learning is not just about education, it is about growing confident, connected young people who know who they are and where they stand.

Me he tai pari i ngā kokoru o Whangaroa – Like the flowing tide of Whangaroa.

26/03/2026

We want to give a huge mihi to the tamariki and whānau of Whangaroa / Kāeo who shared their pūrākau of whānau, whenua and whare over our two days wānanga, gathering the stories that make our home so wonderful 🥰🏡🎨

We're sending all our aroha to the whānau that have been impacted by the storms in the past couple of days and encourage our whānau to check in on each other to see that we are all safe, warm and dry.

Me he tai pari i ngā kokoru o Whangaroa – Like the flowing tide of Whangaroa 🌊

24/03/2026

Nau mai haere mai e te whānau!

We're here down at the Kāeo Community Hall with Wot Matters to hear what makes Whangaroa such an amazing place to live.

Come by and share some soup, art and cheer with us today as we gather the Purākau ki Whangaroa of whānau, whenua and whare here in the heartland.

Tihei wā mauri ora!

17/03/2026

Nau mai haere mai e ngā whānau o Whangaroa to share your stories about what makes our place our most favourite place on the planet!

We invite our whanau of Whangaroa to Coming Together Through Storytelling, to share the stories of the people, places and events that make Whangaroa unique and a place of belonging.

As a community collaboration led out by Wot Matters / Learn2 Lead, our teams and community organisations are getting in to support this kaupapa.

We’re keen to hear what your memories and your moments are in this special part of the world. Your voices will be captured in a collaborative art piece and your oro will be built into our collective initiatives and digital series in prevention that build Mokopuna Ora across Whangaroa.

We're at the Kāeo Memorial Hall, 12 Leigh Street, on 25 March 2026 from 9am to 6pm.

See you there!

16/03/2026

One of the perks of our mahi with Whangaroa communities are those times we get to spend time with our most treasured members and to shower them with the gratitude they so deserve!✨ 🌺💅

Our Te Rūnanga o Whaingaroa kuia kaumatua pamper day at Te Pokapū Community Hauora Hub recently saw a packed house treated with mirimiri, haircuts, nail treatments, eyelash and eyebrow treatments and other pampering goodies to have them walk out looking and feeling their best 🥰

Why? Because we value our people and the insights and knowledge they share around what they see as signs of a healthy, thriving hapori in Whangaroa/Kāeo.

We gathered some ideas around what whanau want to see for our local Puanga and Matariki celebrations coming up in the middle of the year; a time of setting new intentions and putting to rest the old, while making way for the new 🫶

We asked what does Puanga and Matariki mean to you? What special traditions or celebrations do you enjoy doing with your whanau? What creative and innovative Puanga/Matariki celebrations and events do you want to see happening in Whangaroa this year?

We had ideas like seed bombing, Kaumātua/kuia Puanga-themed dinner, kapa haka, camp under the stars, talent quest, walking history tour....and more....✨⛺️🍲

Come down to Te Pokapū Community Hauora Hub, 21 Leigh Street, Kaeo and leave your ideas on the wall too and let's make it happen!

12/03/2026

This is what it looks like when a room full of people get together to make change! 🙌

It was awesome to join the Changemakers network wānanga in Tāmaki Makaurau last week. Changemakers is all about connecting people, supporting men's healing and change across the motu, learning together and activating within local communities ❤️‍🩹 💪

It was a powerful hui attended by more than 60 people who came to hear kōrero from hauora tāne champions Matt Brown, Jeremy Eparaima, Jase Williams and Richie Hardcore.

Ngā mihi nunui to Ngāti Whatua and the incredible backbone team Tauawhi and Taiki E! Te Tairāwhiti for holding us so well 👊

Shout out to the crew repping Hikitia Te Tai Tokerau – Andrew Wharton, Henry Wiki, Richard Hau, Komene Marino and Tumai Troughton – for travelling down from the Far North to be part of it and share the amazing mahi you're doing.

If you want to get in touch with Changemakers for your kaupapa, hit us up and we'll connect you in.

Ka mau te wehi! 🪢

10/03/2026

Mokopuna Ora is living, breathing and thriving in Te Tai Tokerau🫆🧠

This weekend's annual Pasifika Fusion festival in Whangārei was a colourful explosion of the multiple expressions of Pasifika across Te Tai Tokerau 👒🌺🐚

In it's 11th year, it brings together over 10,000 people to enjoy and celebrate culture through performance, kai, markets, whanaungatanga and the sharing of knowledge🥥🍉

We know that connection to people and place through a cultural framework is a critical protective factor in prevention.

And we also know that getting those connections in early with pēpi, tamariki and rangatahi means they will build resilient futures and whānau oranga later on in life ✨

Ko tēnei te mihi maioha me te aroha ki a koutou nō Kamo Primary School, Hikurangi School, Te Horo School, Ōtaika Primary School, Mana o Te Hula Kids Dance Group, Te Kamo High School, Mafutaga Samoa, me ngā roopu nō Whangārei ki Muriwhenua i tū mai mō Hawaii, Tuvalu, Samoa, Niue, Tonga, Kiribati, Cook Islands, Solomon/Vanuatu, me Fiji.

Chehoo! 🔆

Music: Welina Mai by Blaine Kamalani

04/03/2026

Let food be thy medicine 🍱🥕🥑

If you have ever wandered past Te Pokapū Community Hauora Hub on a Tuesday morning, chances are you will have caught glimpses of the sight, smells, sounds and tastes of a community healing through the sharing of kai.

Here is where local oranga kai champion Cleon Samuels has been leading a community movement, centred around the sharing of food technology knowledge to build kai resilience and sovereignty in Whangaroa 💪👨‍🍳

We know that strong connections between people and place are critical protective factors in building preventative communities of practice 🫶

And we really didn't need any excuses to come and create a delicious finger food hakari with our Kaeo community and learn more about what brings people together.

A kaupapa under Te Rūnanga o Whaingaroa, Oranga Kai Te Tai Tokerau is on for two more weeks at Whānau, State Highway 10, Kaeo from 10am to 1pm every Tuesday.

Nau mai, haere mai ki te tunu kai tahi, ki te mahi tahi, ki te manaaki te hapori kia ora ai te whānau!

19/02/2026

He kuaka mārangaranga, kōtahi te manu i tau. Tau atu, tau atu e! 🕊️

For multi-disciplinary artist Bethany Edmunds-Cook, this exhibition really is a homecoming. Her first solo show in Te Hiku brings her back to whenua, whānau, and stories of journeys, reconnection, and comings and goings. 🌐 👣

Tau Atu E! is a collection inspired by the pūrākau and taiao of Ngāti Kuri. The works speak to the kuaka who travel far across the world and then return home to land. It is about settling and laying roots where you belong, and each piece is carefully crafted from fibres from home and shaped by Bethany’s creative journey over time. 🪢 🎨

When she’s not creating her own mahi, Bethany is also the creative director of Toi Oho Creative Activators, working with tamariki and rangatahi across Te Hiku schools. She supports them to learn, play, and express themselves through artistic play and mātauranga Māori.

We love that her oro māreikura is filling this space and bringing our stories to life - we hope it’s the first of many more collaborations to come 🌙🌿