Covid support packages for whānau set to continue for next two years

Thursday, 30 July 2020

Te Pūtahitanga chairman Tā Mark Solomon and Te Pātaka Incorporated chair Dr Lorraine Eade celebrate the funding deal for a Wairau iniative to support whānau throughout Covid-19.

A Wairau initiative to support whānau during the Covid-19 pandemic has secured further funding and plans to continue its work for the next two years.

Beginning in March as the eight-iwi led response to Covid-19, Te Pataka Incorporated was officially established in June to address the ongoing needs of the Māori community.

Since just before lockdown they had delivered nearly 500 kai packages, as well as more than 70 loads of firewood, and they planned to continue with at least 20 packages each week for whānau in need.

Te Pātaka Incorporated chair Lorraine Eade said they had provided emergency packages with Civil Defence during the initial stages of the pandemic.

* Hygiene items being packed and delivered to thousands of Taranaki households

* Manawatū iwi distributing health packs to people in need

Te Pūtahitanga chairman Tā Mark Solomon is supporting Te Pātaka Incorporated with operational costs for its whānau support work.

“When that finished, when alert level 2 came on, there was still a need out in the community for whānau,” she said.

“We still wanted to provide a level of support. So we went to the iwi chairs and established this long term.”

Whānau could receive a standard kai pack (pictured) supplemented with food vouchers or firewood.

On Wednesday an agreement was signed with the South Island whānau ora commissioning agency Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu to cover the group’s operational costs.

Addressing Te Pūtahitanga, including chairman Ta Mark Solomon, at Ūkaipō cultural centre after the signing, Eade said the group had identified early on the impacts Covid would have on whānau.

The met as soon as lockdown hit on March 26.

“The korero [meeting] at that first day was ‘we want to help, we want to have a Māori response and we want to make sure that whānau here get the support that they need within 24 hours’,” she said.

Te Pātaka coordinator Joshua Joseph with firewood volunteers from Civil Defence and Marlborough District Council.

They did the first delivery the next day to a young mum. Since then 270 individual whānau had received support.

During first three weeks they had mostly seen whānau they already knew, but Eade said the second half saw people presenting who had never asked for help before.

“In that second half we had new whānau that had basically run out of their annual leave entitlements, and they were having to make a choice about whether they pay their rent or put food on the table,” she said.

“These were people who were not used to accessing services and found it really difficult to access and seek help.

“Some of the stories were quite heartbreaking.”

Whānau were referred to Te Pātaka through other agencies, but some connected through Facebook messenger.

Providing a kaupapa Māori approach also made it easier for some whānau to access kai without the often detailed assessment processes of other agencies, Eade said.

“Some whānau don’t like those processes and they’re not connected to services, so we just wanted to make sure there was another pathway,” she said.

“Our service is endorsed by all of the eight iwi, we use a kaupapa Māori approach, so it is different to other services like Foodbank.”

“We’re providing an option that whānau don’t go hungry.”

Te Pātaka Inc. had been funded by Kōkiri a-Iwi, Te Puni Kōkiri, Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu, and Marlborough District Council as well as koha from other businesses, organisations and individuals.

“We could not have done it without the support of the community,” Eade said.

The district health board had provided a distribution centre, organisations had donated food and supplies, and a substantive koha from a non-Māori person had paid for the workhouse until the end of October.