Mauri Ora - Growing healthy tamariki, whanau and hapu in Tuhoe communities

This project focuses on whanau wellbeing and resilience by examining the intergenerational transfer of tribal language, identity and cultural knowledge between kaumatua and mokopuna. This study will be located in the community known as Ruatahuna paku kore (literally meaning 'Ruatahuna has absolutely nothing'). We suggest that examples of critical success indicators of whanau wellbeing and resilience exist in the community through whakatauki and other cultural knowledge forms. The project seeks to make these critical success indicators explicit, as determined by the community themselves. An innovative kaupapa-a-iwi methodological framework, which prioritises whanau wellbeing and resilience through Tuhoe matauranga, identity and language, will underpin the research. Local community researchers will be selected and trained, utilising a kaupapa-a-iwi method to identify critical success indicators that exemplify whanau wellbeing and resilience. Potential health outcomes are the validation of a kaupapa-a-iwi framework and its application in the identification and promotion of whanau wellbeing and resilience.