Tū Māia 2025 - Te Whanganui-ā-Tara Expectations

Tapiwa Mugabe: I'm Tapiwa, born and raised, from Zimbabwe. I became a social worker by default but I think it was the right calling. You know how it is when you're placed in a certain place, your dreams are somewhere, but God tends to drive you somewhere else.   

Toni Anna-Ruawai: So I left home to become a chef and grew up with a great grandmother who whāngai me, whose home was kind of the heart of our whānau. Everyone came here and it kind of guided me a little bit more towards there. After I became a chef, I realised it wasn't what I wanted to do and I wanted to be a social worker.   

Bruce Podmore: I'm a Senior People and Performance Partner supporting Tamariki and Whānau services in the Northern region and specifically within that Auckland North, West, Central and South. I see my job as helping people leaders to do their job well, which helps kaimahi do their job well and that makes our job in the people team much easier.   

John Taylor: My family and I have lived in Aotearoa for many years and there's something that culturally we wanted to learn more about. So for me that was in part learning some more reo, but I don't know that I truly believe that I'm living in New Zealand if I don't understand more of the Māori aspect of what it's like to live in Aotearoa.   

Anita Thomas: My name is Anita Thomas and I am from Taranaki, from Ngāmotu, New Plymouth. I'm a Youth Justice Senior Practitioner and I absolutely love my job. I've worked in Care & Protection, Specialist Child Witness interviewing and now I'm in Youth Justice. I just, I just love it.   

Tapiwa Mugabe: My supervisor encouraged me to join Tū Māia. I work in a field that deals with people and in order to be a better social worker, I need to understand where my boundaries are and how best to approach people.   

Toni Anna-Ruawai: I suppose I had a hope that I would learn things that I didn't know myself. I grew up very tūturu Māori but without the reo. But what I have found here is part of me actually was a bit worried about not having the reo and learning from a whare wānanga. But what I have found is it's opened me up to wanting to push myself in my reo journey being here.   

Brice Podmore: I really appreciated the opportunity, all the thought and planning that's gone into presenting the programme. I'd be interested to know how much the programme has changed overtime, but obviously with it being a micro credential course or now that's a change for this time around.  

Doug Hauraki: I think again, it was one of Tā Wira’s aspirations that if we're going to put people through an intensive course like this, whatever this 21 weeks in wānanga and webinar, then they should have something to show for their efforts.   

John Taylor: Wānanga two and three are going to be the most confronting for me. They're going to really challenge the very things that I've grown up with believing socially and culturally who I am and, and I enjoy challenge. I enjoy the critiquing. And if I feel like I've been challenged enough, I feel like I've just made inroads into reforming those narratives. I'm going to feel their success.   

Anita Thomas: I really believe in the work that Oranga Tamariki do so it makes it easy to come to work.