In the final episode of He Kākano Ahau, we explore intergenerational visions, whakapapa, and future aspirations with a māmā-daughter duo, and a Māori futurist.
In the final episode of He Kākano Ahau, we explore intergenerational visions, whakapapa, and future aspirations with a māmā-daughter duo, and a Māori futurist.
By Briar Pomana
Can you imagine how wildly our tīpuna dreamed?
It's evident when we look back and re-examine all those pūrākau, whether this is through our own whānau whakapapa or stories we've heard growing up peeling spuds at the back with the cousins or around the table with our aunties and nannies.
It is in these bursts of laughter, tall tales and often floods of tears we are living, breathing, playful ripples of all those we come from who dared to dream and all those who are yet to come.
This is what He Kākano Ahau: Wawatatia is all about. A podcast of dreams and radical hope in a future that is inclusive, joyful, intimate and full of those moments in between.
When preparing for this season, all the mātauranga and stories felt almost too massive to rope together.
Flash forward and the people involved in this podcast, their experiences, mahi and aspirations now interwoven, have deepened the continual wānanga and given ambition to possibilities for our mokopuna. Kua raranga tahi tātou, he whārangi ipurangi mō apōapō.
In this final instalment of He Kākano Ahau: Wawatatia, Kahu Kutia travels to Te Tairawhiti, to visit two women she has known since her childhood. Mother and daughter duo, Whaea Sharon and Mania Campbell-Seymour are activists from a long line of mana wāhine stretching across Te Tairawhiti, Māhia and Te Whakatōhea.
Whaea Sharon, a solo mother who put herself through university and has spent the majority of her career working in education, recalls the discomfort in her university lectures and meeting rooms when conversations turned to social issues that affect Māori communities every day.
"I do not accept that we have an education system that pays itself billions of dollars to continue failing our tamariki at the same rate, it is absolutely criminal," Whaea Sharon says.
Working within broken systems is also a field of mahi Mania is actively trying to remould. Mania is an academic, a deep thinker and a doctor.
Similar to kōrero shared by Whaea Sharon, Mania recounts how alienating the medical and university space was and can be for Māori looking to enter professions like medicine.
She explains how heartbreaking it is to see whānau Māori struggling to navigate medical care and exist in systems not built for them and their needs…