Nurturing resilience

I've been gardening here at Te Rewarewa for four years now, opening up the māra as a way to reconnect our whānau back to the land and writing our food sovereignty kaupapa. Our business, Awatea Organics, specialises in growing heritage organic food, seed, and medicine, as well as cultivating farmers. We believe that sharing knowledge about growing heritage food is going to help our people to reclaim our culture, reconnect to the land and be healthy.

So pretty much, we’ve been squeezed down to this 165 acre block. A lot of things have happened in terms of illegal use of the land, pushing the family off and alienation but we’ve been fortunate to have a legal incorporation for a long time, so we have meetings – and every year more