Rere ana te puna wai o Wharemauku
Te maringi iho ana i te rangi.
Rere ana te wairua tō te tangata, e oho mai runga.
Ti ara ra!
Ti ara ra!
Ti. Ti. Ti Hā!
Nau mai, haere mai – come and be part of this very special journey.
Weaving together the voices of the Wharemauku, with a team of haukainga taiao practitioners, environmental educators and the community, AWE: te mauri o Wharemauku is a series of four seasonal workshops that provide a unique curriculum experience for educators within the Kapiti rohe.
Raumati
RAUMATI | Tuatoru
Turu, te ono o Whiringa-ā-Rāngi
Thursday 6 November, 9:30-4:30pm
Kia Aio te Noho, Kapiti Marae + surrounds
We continue into the warming seasons and down the awa, ki uta ki tai, on our third seasonal workshop. We will:
- connect to Parihaka Mai Ai values as a guide for our relationship to the Wharemauku Stream, local ecosystems, and community narratives.
- explore how mātauranga Māori is providing a ara rongoā – a healing pathway, for the freshwater ecologies of the awa.
- provide inspiration and guidance for kaiako around next steps and learning opportunities in the classroom.
Grow your understanding of the wisdom of this river, develop local knowledge and add practical tools to your learning kete, all linked to the NZC.
Each of the four workshops centres the messages and stories of the Wharemauku river and haukainga.
Through centring this mātauranga, we are all able to access and connect with values from a worldview that remembers what it is to relate to te taiao with love, reverence and humility, values that are essential for our collective future.
Each workshop explores a different state of mauri — from pristine wellness to the impacts of colonisation and climate change — weaving pūrākau, tikanga, science, and practical action into an immersive learning experience.
The project equips educators with rich local knowledge, culturally grounded teaching tools, and a renewed sense of environmental responsibility.
Awe (pronounced ah-we)
te reo rangatira
- containing the essence of your personal wairua
- strength, power and influence
- the white feathers of the toroa (albatross)
Awe (pronounced oar)
te reo Pākehā
- wonderment, inspiration, reverence, honour, love
Through Awe: te mauri o Wharemauku, we aim to:
- Honour and embed mana whenua knowledge and leadership in local place based education
- Foster intergenerational connection and responsibility to te taiao
- Support the wellbeing of the Wharemauku awa and all who depend on them
- Provide practical tools and curriculum-linked resources for schools
- Inspire community-wide awareness and action through educators
Takurua
The first seasonal workshop took place in Takurua on Ohua, Te Tahi o Pipiri, Thursday 26 June with 23 kaiako and haukainga practitioners from across the rohe.
This workshop was designed to connect our living selves with the living stories of te Wharemauku, a collective activation of mauri in relation to this sacred waterway.
Curriculum links were made across Te Ao Tangata I Social Sciences (inc. Aotearoa NZ Histories), Science and Health and PE.
Watch the highlight video from the day – a beautiful time of connection, presence and attunement to the mauri of the Wharemauku.
We developed together :
- Reverence for indigenous ways of knowing
- Experience of awe
- Attunement to the more than human world
- Feeling our own agency in system/context
- Belief in our own embodied expertise
- Practices to approach this with your learners
- Practical tools to leave with, linked to the NZC
The workshop was completed with each participant receiving a Maramataka and a zine filled with activities and curriculum links.
Koanga
The second seasonal workshop took place in Koanga on Tangaroa-ā-mua, Te Wha o Mahuru, Tuesday 16 September with 20 kaiako and haukainga practitioners from across the rohe.
This workshop sought to explore the impact of colonisation on te Wharemauku from the lens of those who whakapapa to this area and supported Tangata Tiriti to better understand this through immersive and experiential activities..
Curriculum links were made across Te Ao Tangata I Social Sciences (inc. Aotearoa NZ Histories), Visual Arts, English and Health and PE.
The intentions of the workshop, were to:
- Develop strategies for holding cultural and emotional safety in conversations and creative processes
- Analyse local histories of the waterway, naming both dominant colonial narratives and suppressed Indigenous ones.
- Integrate arts and mātauranga Māori approaches into environmental education, emphasising relationality, reciprocity, and respect to process grief, honour resilience, and imagine alternative futures for te Wharemauku.
- Commit to concrete next steps in our practice that strengthen relationships with te taiao, mana whenua, and disrupt patterns of supremacy.
“From a mātauranga Māori perspective, the living world is intrinsically interconnected, with no element within it existing in isolation from another.
The systems and patterns of te taiao are recognised as relationships held for countless generations; relationships which we also hold and must do our part to honour and maintain.
Our own wellbeing is intrinsically interconnected with that of the living world.”
Playlists curated for the journey
Aweako 