Tuia Trust: Empowering rangatahi and enriching communities

Tuia Trust helping to flip the script on how organisations interact with rangatahi

Rangatahi on a wānanga

The Tuia programme was first run in 2011, with a primary desire to flip the script on what it meant to be a rangatahi Māori. Rather than seeing them as a drain on our society, there was a keenness to explore the potential that already exists in young Māori, and to support the amazing things many of them already do in communities all around Aotearoa. 

Marcus Akuhata-Brown (Ngāti Porou, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu) was the key driver in the founding of Tuia kaupapa, and in 2012 the Tuia Charitable Trust was established. One of the key partnerships in the establishment of Tuia was with the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs.

Seeing as mayors are the only elected leaders of their communities, a mutually beneficial opportunity was seen whereby a mayor could identify and mentor a young Māori person for a year, to provide guidance and insight into local government. Simultaneously, the rangatahi could also aid in the mayor’s understanding of their community in ways they previously may not have been able to.

The Tuia programme is available to rangatahi Māori aged 18-25, from diverse backgrounds and with varying degrees of Māori cultural competency, from around Aotearoa. It’s a means to empower rangatahi to give back to their community, to enrich it in a way that the rangatahi themselves can see is relevant for their rohe.

Rawiri Tapiata (Te Arawa, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, and Tuia Trust Manager) is a teacher and videographer who has supported the development of rangatahi for over 13 years, nine of those being with Tuia.

The Tuia Approach

The Trust was initially set up through a partnership with the Mayor’s Taskforce for Jobs, and in its first year engaged with 14 rangatahi to develop the Tuia approach which centres around three pou – mentoring, wānanga, and community contribution.

The mentoring part of the Tuia programme sees a mayor and rangatahi pair up for a roughly year-long process where they collaborate on key activities, meet regularly, and provide learnings on leadership, community, and engagement. While the structure of the programme lasts around a year, the Tuia alumni often form life-long connections through their time in the cohort – both with the mayors, and the other rangatahi.

“We’ve often heard feedback from mayors who say they couldn’t tell who was mentoring who,” says Rawiri. “Our approach very much goes both ways between the mayor and the rangatahi.”

Throughout the first year, Tuia held four wānanga across the year for the 14 rangatahi. These wānanga engage the rangatahi and expose them to high profile speakers. They are held across the country, offering trips to local areas of interest for the cohort.

The number of wānanga per year has grown over the past 12 years, with five wānanga per year being held since 2018 across Waikato, Rotorua, Te Whanganui a Tara, Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Waipounamu.

“The wānanga are based on how we draw on ancient wisdom and mātauranga to inform decisions, both present and future,” says Rāwiri. “The key pillars of these sessions are knowledge and relationships. We bring in speakers from a range of backgrounds to contribute to the lives of the rangatahi – from kaumātua or historians from the local areas where the wānanga are held, to our indigenous Hawaiian whanaunga, to the mayors in our programme themselves.”

The mentoring and wānanga are facilitated to empower rangatahi to identify what they need to contribute to their communities and be the best they can be.

“Rangatahi are contributors to their communities, they know best from their own lived experiences what their own communities need. It’s not up to the mayor or our kaiako to determine what and how they can give back, but rather empower these rangatahi with the resources they need to make their community contributions.”

The Tuia programme involves rangatahi undertaking and recording approximately 100 hours of community service, providing them an opportunity to practice new strategies and demonstrate leadership.

The mahi rangatahi do in their community varies depending on their skill set and time. For instance, past participant, Caitlin Baker (Ngāti Moki, Taumutu), collected donations for Plunket and the Ronald McDonald house as well as provided tutoring services to her friend’s sister.

Since inception, Tuia has worked with around 600 rangatahi and 59 mayors, across all regions of Aotearoa. Tuia has 4 part-time employees, with 95% of the work being done voluntarily.

A collaborative approach to funding

Six funders came together to support Tuia in a unique funding model that fosters a collaborative relationship.

Kate Frykberg, a board member of the Tuia Trust, associate of Tūmanako Consultants, a board member of the Innovation Unit Australia New Zealand, and chair of Te Muka Rau, says that the collaboration of funders is more sustainable than single-funded arrangements.

“This is our second year having multiple funders. Since initiating this model, we have noticed how beneficial it is for financing our work and facilitating wider relationships. We now have these connections with a range of organisations that we can connect rangatahi with in order to grow their networks.” 

All funders provide Tuia with untagged funding and are invited to experience the mahi being done by attending wānanga instead of reading about it through reports.