What does community mean to you?

Hone | Tūranganui-a-Kiwa

Hone reflects on the importance of contribution, belonging, and intergenerational support in maintaining connection to whānau and marae.

“The simple answer for that pātai is… marae. I had grown up within the kaupapa, and it took me to leave Tūranga to really understand what disconnection was. And i pā mai te pōuri ki roto i a au (sadness came over me).

I taku hokitanga mai ki te kāinga (when i returned home), I dove right into being whatever it was my marae needed of me, my hapū (subtribe), my people needed of me. A lot of my reanga (generation) struggle coming back in because they don’t feel like they fit or they don’t have anything to contribute.

And so one of the points that I try to kind of hammer home with people that are in my reanga is that even if it’s only the tea towel that you grab, that’s enough. That is enough of a contribution to your marae.

Probably the biggest example of that was I moved away for high school. I moved down to te Manawatū, and then down to Wellington. And I didn’t have to worry about coming home. But our grandfather got sick and he passed away. And our marae, the marae that I’m currently speaking about, kicked in and took us in as a whānau.

It’s not our whakapapa (lineage) that binds us to that marae, it’s the love that we share for each other. And so when our marae grabbed us and took us in our moment of need, we never forgot, and we always knew. And so when the marae needed us, we clicked, instantaneously.

And I’m happy. And extremely proud of my whānau who have not allowed us to be disconnected. Ehara ko koe anake e hīkoi ana i tēnei ara, ka noho pūmau tātou ki a tātou. (You’re not walking this path alone; we remain steadfast to each other).”