Healthy Families Rotorua systems innovators Stevee Wikiriwhi and Teteira Ormsby discovered some gems during their research haerenga at Waitawa Puna last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pair mapped the puna from Owhatiura, through Lynmore, and towards Lake Rotorua as part of the Waitawa Restoration Project, which Stevee is leading. She will be fostering relationships with mana whenua, hap\u016b, strategic partners and government agencies, along with local kura, kohanga reo, and businesses for collective impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stevee says the restoration project is about activating community responsiveness to transform the local wai system and restore the mauri of the wai and whenua.
\u201cWhen we returned to the office after our haerenga, it was really cool to connect the photos we took with the findings on our maps, including the little heritage sites we found along the way,\u201d says Stevee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teteira said the haerenga was a journey of unearthing whakapapa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt really highlighted how valuable research is before physically putting yourself in the research location. We found things you probably wouldn\u2019t find in a book or any documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe saw some of those man-made artifacts, which led to more questions about when and why they were built, and if they were built on top of the puna. So, we went there informed but the haerenga surfaced a lot more questions, which was really good for Stevee\u2019s research,\u201d says Teteira.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stevee is meeting with Ng\u0101ti Hurunga te Rangi this weekend to engage with iwi and co-design opportunities to enable M\u0101ori ownership in this space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe think the answers will be with the iwi as a collective because the various iwi surrounding the puna have their own p\u016br\u0101kau and they all have their own identity,\u201d says Stevee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Healthy Families Rotorua systems innovators Stevee Wikiriwhi and Teteira Ormsby discovered some gems during their research haerenga at Waitawa Puna last week. The pair mapped the puna from Owhatiura, through Lynmore, and towards Lake Rotorua as part of the Waitawa Restoration Project, which Stevee is leading. She will be fostering relationships with mana whenua, hap\u016b, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,23,25],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n