Last Thursday we spent our June staff training learning about Matariki.

Jessica-Maraea our Group Programme Facilitator writes: 

“Mānawatia a Matariki! So much happened on Thursday, where to start! I delivered a ‘Matariki 101’ presentation focusing on the significance of Matariki to Māori followed by some activities for everyone to do in small groups. The first was brainstorming ways we can implement the teachings of each star into our work with youth, whānau and the community, which resulted in some wonderful ideas! Including ways to spend meaningful time with whānau, time to remember those who have passed, and ways to link with our natural world, to sum up a few. We also had a light-hearted dress-up competition which helped to embody some of the ideas in each group’s brainstorms! I was so impressed with the creative and brilliant ideas they came up with, stay tuned next Matariki to see some of them come to life!

We had a member of the Porirua community, Meri Holmes, join us to teach some harakeke weaving. She taught us how to make stars out of harakeke. For some of us, it was tricky but the smell of freshly cut harakeke filled the room and transformed the atmosphere into a special space and made the experience all that more enjoyable. Thank you for joining us Meri! 

Hangi was on the menu for lunch! Made with food brought by everyone, which was prepared and served with love by Mel and partner Whare, it was so delicious, a big thank you to the two of you! And finally, we ended the day with some team-building activities run by the wonderful cadets from Mana Colleges Service Academy, we were so impressed with their ability to get stuck into the activities despite only having met us that morning and again with their leadership skills to run the closing activities, well done Rangatahi mā. 

Overall it was an enjoyable day full of fun, laughter and learning.”