Our first programme wānanga
On 30th October 2023, the full research team and the Rōpu Kaiārahi of the HRC programme grant “Taunakitanga Takitini: reframing self-management support for all in Aotearoa” met at the Pipitea Marae for Pōwhiri, for whakawhanaungatanga and for a chance for everyone to get to know each other, or to reconnect within the space of this kaupapa.
This was also an opportunity for us all to share how we came to be involved in the Programme grant and to share our stories about who we are and why supporting people mattered to us, a discussion led Co-Director, Ofa Dewes.
The project leads and teams: Ofa
Dewes (Tongan Health Society), Shirley Keown (Turanga Health), Brigit
Mirfin-Veitch (Donald Beasley Institute) also spoke to the aspirations of their
communities, and what was important for their communities going forward into
this research. They spoke about how they
have worked with the communities to this stage and how they would work going
forward.
On the 2nd day of our wānanga we all met for a wānanga at Te Puni Room, Wharewaka. The primary goal of which was to continue our whakawhanaungatanga and gain a deeper understanding of concepts within our programme of research.
An important aspect of the day was that this was the first time many of our researchers on the programme and our Rōpu Kaiārahi had been able to meet face-to-face, many of our prior discussions, due to the Covid pandemic, were conducted via zoom, thereby often fairly restricted. Our discussions focused on our programme aims of disrupting current understandings of SSM and reframing SSM specific for Aotearoa to enable the vision of Pae ora (good health and wellbeing).
