Maatua Whaangai

1983

Jim Henare

Robert Muldoon had been persuaded a few months earlier to launch a new initiative to help Maori families.  It was called Maatua Whaangai (=foster parent) and the kaumatua spearheading it nationally were my old acquaintance Sir James Henare, and John Rangihau, a prominent Maori educator. The plan was to establish teams of two workers in each region, one from Maori Affairs and one from DSW. 

John Rangihau

Terry called for a volunteer to pick up this task, and after a few days’ thought I offered to do it. So Ian Kilgour took over the volunteers and I started a new learning curve. I was given an office in King Street opposite the Public Library. 

I was introduced to my Maori Affairs colleague, Maraea Tippins, and to our dedicated car. Maraea was a very experienced community worker. She was a member of the Bailey family from Kairau Marae at Brixton near Waitara, and lived in Waitara itself just round the corner from Manukorihi Marae and from the house Margaret’s grandparents had lived in. 

Our job was to identify the at-risk Maori families and teenagers and do what we could to help them. We soon settled on helping to establish Kohanga Reo centres as the best thing we could do while we worked out a more long-term plan. 

Kohanga Reo was a new initiative of Maori iwi and hapu all over the country. It was working on shoe-string budgets and volunteer workers. It was like a Maori version of playcentre, but it had a double purpose: to encourage Maori families to use early childhood education, and to foster the learning and use of Maori language. 

Maraea and I visited groups all over Taranaki which were trying to get their own Kohanga Reo off the ground. She would help them access funds and other resources from Maori Affairs sources and I would make sure they knew the legal requirements and help them all maximise their funds from child support schemes operated by DSW. 

In this way we helped strengthen the existing centre in New Plymouth, which met in a building in the grounds of St Joseph’s school, and to establish centres in Fitzroy, Waitara, Oakura, Okato, Manaia, Hawera, Tawhiti, Patea (2), Ketemarae, Stratford and Inglewood.

We gathered an advisory committee of experienced people, which included kaumatua like Sonny Waru and Mate Carr. We attended conferences on several marae around Taranaki, and national conferences of Maatua Whaangai. I started a formal course to learn Maori language (Te Ataarangi) using cuisenaire sticks, in which Margaret joined me.

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Note: Today is 12 July, the birthday of Fred Gaze, my grandfather, 147 years ago. Here he is about 70 years old, with Noel and me.