Rural Māori communities like Mangamuka in the Far North have been bearing the brunt of climate change for years, and resilience in times of crisis is a way of life. Cyclone Gabrielle was no different.

Reina Penney switches pōtae between chair of Mangamuka’s Kōhanga Reo and Primary School, and Kaiwhiriwhiri Kōrero of the national Māori housing advocacy group, Te Matapihi. Reina lives with her husband and whānau off-grid, fully self-contained in Mangamuka, and is often frustrated by the stigma associated with homelessness and the lack of resources to support more people to become self-sufficient in the North. She says that in the latest storm, some of those whānau considered by the state to be living in “temporary housing” were actually some of the most resilient. Reina shares insights from the pā harakeke about what we can learn from those who’ve been living with the pressures of climate change for a long time.

As told to Nadine Anne Hura. This article is the second in a series of short features profiling New Zealanders who are often overlooked in news coverage.

On the Friday before Cyclone Gabrielle hit, I reached out to Te Hau Ora Ō Ngāpuhi and this amazing guy called Te Uri drove through the middle of the storm to meet me in Kaikohe at the distribution hub. We picked up about 15 kai packs so I could deliver them to all the kōhanga mums. They’re the ones I was worried about. I know not everyone can afford to stock up in an emergency. Some whānau are not the sort to put up their hand and ask for help either. In fact, the ones who most need help are often the first to say “give it to someone else who needs it more”.’

That’s why we gave kai packs to everyone, universally. That way people wouldn’t feel whakamā about accepting. Support shouldn’t feel judgmental, as if we’re saying we don’t think you can take care of yourself.

That was one of our key learnings as a community; just the importance of manaakitanga. On Sunday, even though we didn’t have much to offer other than a whole lot of aroha, we went out to do welfare checks. There were trees down blocking the road and people trapped in their homes, no power, no comms, food running low. They were just happy to see us. They were scared and confused and that contact from the outside world was everything.

Civil Defence dropped off three packs of mince, but I’m sorry, that’s just not enough to feed our community. We did the best with what we had, but some still missed out. It feels heavy when that happens. It doesn’t feel good. Why aren’t marae and hapū directly resourced as soon as a state of emergency is declared? We know how to feed the masses on a budget. We’re used to it, and I can tell you, three packets of mince ain’t going to cut it!

Māori providers need to have the same status and be resourced on a par with Civil Defence. Why do we have to go through another agency to get help? They don’t know what we need. I’m not even sure they know how their policies work. Some people got support, others didn’t. We got the run-around, sent from one place to another, and I thought to myself, this is crazy. Their systems don’t work for us.

We’re not asking for handouts. It’s just about support that works for us. What do the solutions look like? It’ll be different for every hapū and every marae but the point is the solutions need to come from within. We are the best placed because we know our people. And you can see how marae work, how efficient we are. We do the same job as Civil Defence, we look after everyone, Māori and Pākehā. We don’t discriminate. 

If you resource an agency that doesn’t know our community, that money will just go down the drain. It creates dependency and no one wants that. I guarantee that if marae are resourced to prepare for climate change directly, every tiny little bit will go towards sustainable long-term solutions. Nothing will be wasted.

I work in the homelessness space. There are a lot of whānau who live off-grid up here. They might be invisible to the state, they may not have material wealth, but they’re not homeless. They’re living on their whenua. They’re able to take care of themselves. When you look at it that way, seeing all the challenges they face, especially with climate change, you realise how amazing they are. This is not a pity story. It’s a strength story. 

That’s the positive out of this. Some whānau weathered this storm really well. We’ve got people in converted containers, buses, shelters that might be classified as “temporary”, and a lot of them were able to help others. Whānau who had already made themselves self-sufficient are actually the heroes of this story. They’ve done it without government assistance too. It might not be flash, they might only have a little solar unit that cost a few hundred bucks, but it’s enough to be self-sufficient.

This is what the future looks like. It’s not temporary, it’s not precarious and it’s certainly not homelessness, it’s rangatiratanga. 

When officials say they need to come in and do an assessment of a whare to see if someone qualifies for support, a lot of whānau aren’t interested in that. That’s an intrusion. Our people don’t trust government agencies. They don’t want a notice to fix from the council which they can’t afford. Or a red sticker telling them they have to move. WINZ announced a temporary accommodation benefit, but it discriminates against rural communities because you have to move away to access it. People would rather go without. 

To be honest, Gabrielle wasn’t the worst flood we’ve seen. This isn’t our first rodeo up here in the north. We’ve been facing climate change for a long time now. It’s just another thing adding pressure to the situation. But the last thing our whānau want is for people to feel sorry for us. We’re survivors. We’re creative. Who is defining wealth and poverty and “vulnerability” anyway?

The best housing solution is to support whānau to have rangatiratanga on their own whenua so that they can be resilient in times of crisis. Self-sufficiency full stop and for ever. We shouldn’t be dependent on infrastructure that is so vulnerable. We need to prepare for simplified, localised, self-sufficient living. Everyone needs to be on solar. Marae need to be on solar. Not even generators. Generators need fuel and when the roads are blocked and service stations closed, what then? 

With solar, if you run out of power, well that’s it. E moe! Go to sleep! There’ll be more when the sun comes up tomorrow.

This is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.

A first-time performer’s journey to compete against the best kapa haka groups in the world.

The road to performing at Te Matatini requires dedication, perseverance, and for many kaihaka, an abundance of lengthy commutes.

Lawyer and mum of three Lu’isa Latimer-Toetu’u (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Whātua and Whakatohea) knows this all too well. She’s spent every second Friday over the last six months driving around three hours north from her home in Tāmaki Makaurau to weekend wānanga in the lead up to her first ever Te Matatini as part of kapa haka rōpū Ngā Manu Mātui – a Te Tai Tokerau-based group affiliated with Ngāpuhi that was established in 2010. 

On Wednesday afternoon last week, the first day of the four-day Te Matatini competition, Latimer-Toetu’u filed into place on stage as her children, partner and whānau watched on from the crowd. Proudly wearing a teal, black and white knitted pari and matching tipari with her poi at the ready, tucked into her piupiu, she joined her group as they opened their 25-minute bracket with a collaboration of soaring harmonies. That experience on stage, and the lead-up to it, she says, has been life-changing.

Latimer-Toetu’u was born in Whangārei, and other than a stint in Tonga and Melbourne, has lived most of her life in Auckland. An absence of kapa haka groups at high school meant that beyond the occasional haka learnt at primary school or waiata practiced in school assemblies, she hadn’t stepped into the world of kapa haka before September last year. It was her three children that gave her the courage to pick up the poi.

In 2018, and while studying at law school at the University of Auckland, Latimer-Toetu’u and her partner, who is also Māori, had their first child. Her second child was born after she graduated and her third was born last year. Becoming parents for the first time “was a huge life-altering moment” and sparked conversation between the pair about how they would raise their children.

“We realised that we both had a bit of an identity crisis-type situation while we were at university, and that law school surprisingly allowed us to navigate through that,” she says. It was through the university’s Māori law students association Te Rākau Ture and the Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme that the two were confronted by feelings of absence around their identity. “Yes we were Māori, but we were half caste and we didn’t speak te reo Māori,” she says. “We started to realise that there was a feeling of a piece missing, and a yearning for something more.” 

Their children, they decided, would be immersed in a world that they’d missed out on. It meant enrolling their children in kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa, regular visits to their marae and learning te reo Māori themselves.

Kapa haka began finding its way into their home by way of waiata and haka learnt by her children at kōhanga. “I would go in and ask the kaiako if I could have the kupu for the songs that they were learning so that I knew what the kids were saying so that I could sing with them and learn too, she says”. And her three-year-old daughter Eva found a special affinity with the world of kapa haka, “she’s gravitated towards kapa haka in a very profound way”. 

It was a family group chat message from her aunty last year that led her to the first kapa haka muster for Ngā Manu Mātui with her daughter at their marae in Takahiwai. Not knowing what to expect, she went into the day nervous that the time would be filled with auditions or waiata solos. Instead, it was low-key: “we introduced ourselves, learned a waiata all together, and then we had kai, and I, really, really enjoyed it.” And while she’d never heard the waiata they learned before, “it was just like I knew the song”. 

Despite weeks of reservations around whether it would even be possible to dedicate that time to the practices on top of a job and being a mother, she made the decision to return to her marae every fortnight – without her kids. “That was the first weekend that I’d spent by myself without my kids, so that was hard for me,” she says. Even though kids were welcome at wānanga, Latimer-Toetu’u felt that it was important to give herself the time and space to fully absorb every kupu, every harmony and every movement. With the support of her partner, whānau, tutors and rōpū, each and every wānanga she attended, she attended alone. 

At times, that meant the experience was tinged with guilt around being away from her kids. “I’ve never had a hobby or anything aside from the things that I need to do or that I have to do for myself, and I think for mums that’s very common.” “It’s been something for me, which is something that I’ve never had,” she says. 

Latimer-Toetu’u says, “it was a really monumental point for me because I’d been struggling with postpartum depression, and I noticed when I was at kapa haka that even though it was daunting, it was a very healing experience for me.” 

Part of that healing was reconnecting with her marae – a place she’d not stayed at in years became astonishingly familiar. It might have been more convenient to join a group based in Tāmaki Makaurau, but it would have lacked part of what made this journey so vital. “I’ve been doing all of these things where I’m from, surrounded by my tupuna at my marae, in Ngāpuhi dialect and the “Ngāpuhi way”, which are things I wouldn’t have necessarily had if I was in a group in Auckland,” she says.

Being a first-timer in the realm of kapa haka, especially in the run-up to Te Matatini, is not without its challenges. “It has definitely not been easy for me,” she says. “Learning all the kupu for the songs and then learning the poi for the first time in my life, that was all a huge struggle.” 

That meant there were plenty of tears along the way, but her initial hesitancy around being able to swing the poi on time, remembering the continuous rhythms of mōteatea and being able to pūkana while staying in tune has given way to a sense of ease. “Everything is just so interconnected and woven together, that without the other, it just doesn’t make sense,” she says.

This feeling is something Latimer-Toetu’u hopes others will seek out – especially if they’re newcomers to kapa haka. “You’re never too old to join kapa haka,” she says. “Kapa haka in its essence, is a taonga to our people and so it’s something that you can have at any stage of your life, anywhere, anytime, you don’t even have to be in a kapa haka group.”

In those long drives, in those wānanga, in the relentless support from whānau, in the kupu and rhythms of waiata and haka, in those 25 minutes on stage, in the the hopes and dreams she has for her children’s future, Latimer-Toetu’u has found at least part of that missing piece. “It’s an experience I’d never had before, like my ancestors are tapping into me,” she says.

“If you hear the call, just listen to it,”  Latimer-Toetu’u says. “Your ancestors, they’re calling you for a reason.”