Ō Rangaranga with Tom Heaphy

Ko Tom Heaphy tōku ingoa, ko tūranga mahi, Kaitiaki Ako ā-Takiwa ki Te Waipounamu. 

Kei te kiakia o te ngākau, kei te maumahara au te whakatauakī o te tari o Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, Mō tātau, mō aku uri a muri ake nei. 

It's amazing to immerse myself in the kaupapa in Te Ao Tūroa, te ao Māori Marty and in the world of Ngāti Āhuru. I'll be taking these learnings as tauiwi and Tangata Tiriti and taking them back to my region, continuing to be and and growing and being a champion of Te Reo Māori. We ask a lot of our kaimahi Māori  and Oranga Tamariki to step out of their roles and to give more and more, and I think there's a real role for tauiwi champions of the reo to step up and and awhi our own colleagues. I think we need more opportunities like this. I think we need to get more of our kaimahi able to experience this amazing immersive learning world that I'm lucky enough to be in. The more of our kaimahi that can share in what we're doing here, the better for us, the better for our kaimahi the better for our tamariki, whānau and hapori. We know as called out in Pūao Te Atatū, there's a profound misunderstanding of the place of Tamariki Māori and the family unit. I think anything that we can do that gives our tangata tiriti our kaimahi tauiwi an opportunity to better understand the Māori way of life. The Whakapapa, everything that has formed a modern day Māori.

Then, we going to be much better at working with and understanding and getting out of our own worldviews?