Sharples - Our Health, Our Children, Our Future
te-pati-maori
Tue Jul 03 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Sharples - Our Health, Our Children, Our Future
Tuesday, 3 July 2007, 2:47 pm
Speech: The Maori Party
University of Otago, Dunedin;
Tuesday 3 July 2007
New Zealand Health Teachers Association Conference
Our Health, Our Children, Our Future; O tatou hauora, a tatou tamariki, to tatou moemoea
Dr Pita R Sharples; Co-leader of the Maori Party
Tino rangatiratanga:
A key Determinant for Good Health in Aotearoa
When I looked at your programme and saw the incredible range of topics being discussed, it made me think that this association is truly investing in the health and well-being of our rangatahi.
There seemed to be a little bit about everything for everyone:
- Loss and grief;
- Spirituality
- Positive body images;
- Drug education;
- Sexuality education;
- Process drama and applied theatre;
- Fostering resilience;
- Reaffirming diversity;
- Sexual violence and bullying;
- Te Ao Kori
- Te Hononga.
And it made me think of the pepeha passed down from our tipuna:
‘Haere e whai i te waewae o Uenuku; kia ora ai te tangata’.
Go search for the footprints of Uenuku so that human kind may be nurtured.
Uenuku is said to have been a very wise person from whom one could expect to learn the secrets of health, personal safety and welfare. When one looks at the conference agenda for this association it makes me wonder whether this conference might instead have been better entitled, ‘The Uenuku Reunion’.
But is it really possible that the attributes of Uenuku are ones we should expect to be seeing in New Zealand health teachers –is your calling in life to be the all-time one-stop-shop in every school?
Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
As I pondered the possibility of health teachers being the ultimate authority, the epitome of a good all-rounder, a couple of news items interrupted my flow.
The first was the opportunity seized by the Howard Government to use the military to take control of sixty Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. Military occupations where Aboriginal children will now be subjected to physically and psychologically invasive medical examinations in the context of the sexual abuse investigations. Not a role I would have immediately associated with as appropriate for military personnel.
The second intrusion was an initiative launched yesterday in Wellington, where Work and Income case managers will now be expected to be key informants in referring suspected family violence incidents through to Child, Youth and Family. WINZ workers who’s key priority is in facilitating assistance in the areas of employment and income support, will suddenly, overnight, become specialists in family violence.
What worried me about both these issues is the increasing tendency to load expectations on to a workforce to become generalist specialists - jack and jills of all trade - and my fear is that eventually something has to give.
For years, Maori teachers have been burdened with the responsibility that they should be accountable for every Maori child in the school – and it would appear from what health teachers are saying to me – every teacher of health will now be accountable for every health and wellbeing issue that enters the school grounds.
My aroha to all those health teachers out there who also happen to be Maori!
The Maori Party doesn’t come here with any quick fix; the golden answer, but we do believe we have a pathway of possibilities that open up opportunities for our health, our children, our future.
Our overwhelming belief in the importance of focusing on the growth of healthy, resilient independent people:
Te Pahauteanga o te iwi Maori kei konei kei Aotearoa nei, a, kei te ao whanui.
We live by kaupapa and tikanga which remind us that the most effective outcome is in ensuring the people determine their own solutions and we must do everything possible to harness that potential – not create criteria or restrictive barriers that get in the way.
And so our mantra as a political party, is that we are interested in the optimal conditions for success – what are the ideas our people have about how to achieve the growth of healthy, resilient independent people?
And so it is here, that I come to this hui, to learn from you about how we can best achieve this transformation.
O tatou hauora, a tatou tamariki, to tatou moemoea.
The consistent message in your conference theme is the concept, tatou, all of us.
And as we sit here today, conscious of this unique location within Te Wai Pounamu, and the relationship we honour with Kai Tahu, Ngati Mamoe and Waitaha as tangata whenua, I want to share some of my ideas around what we mean by tatou, all of us.
As a starting point, I refer to the guiding wisdom of Nga Runanga o te Tai o Ara-i-te-uru; and the tribal saying, Mo tatou, a, mo ka uri a muri ake nei.
For us and our children after us.
As health teachers, you must always be conscious of the pathway you will leave behind, the legacy you inspire for us and our children after us.
But that does not mean, you need to become ‘us’ or ‘them’.
You do need to be truly strong in who you are.
I think of this as the difference between being the architects and the drivers of tino rangatiratanga; and those who help to make self-determination possible, through opening up doors because of their own cultural competency.
It is not about having to take on everything, be an authority of all things, at the risk of losing your own unique identity in the process.
Charles Waldegrave has described such a dilemma, and I quote:
Because of the dominance of white values in the social sciences, this often requires people to leave their people and values to study under other people with different values, in order to be qualified to work with their own people again.
This sort of learning process is quite disrespectful to other cultures, and worse still may contribute to disabling indigenous and other cultural workers to help their own.
Cultural competency is about making it possible for the cultural beliefs and values of others to be honoured. It is about ensuring we are well connected - with communication co-ordinated through communities and families.
Cultural competency is also about knowing that the cultural practices, values and beliefs of others are relevant to their wellbeing.
Are our children being cared for through the expression of manaakitanga –in a loving environment? Are our children able to interact with their peers? Do they have the skills to enhance kotahitanga, to act socially?
Is rangatiratanga valued – the potential of every student nurtured to its fullest capacity – allowing them to be all they are capable of, and more? Are we able to recognise the endorsement of whanaungangata –is family and community support encouraged as a basis for your growth as a school.
And importantly, cultural competency comes from one own’s confidence in standing in their own shadow – living their own lives - and being comfortable with that.
Perhaps if I take the hot buzz project of healthy kai as an example.
Healthy Eating to improve nutrition, to increase physical activity, to reduce obesity is of course the latest high profile PR campaign to be thrust into the laps of health teachers.
It would be, however, untenable for any individual teacher, indeed any individual school, to take action against unhealthy food without ensuring communication and co-operation with their communities.
The last thing we want to be doing is setting up tension between school and home, with the school students suddenly forced into the role of the Diet Police in monitoring their parents packing the desirable standard items for school lunch-boxes.
Undertaking such a challenge in a culturally competent way, may involve discussions with the wider community about food which was valued in traditional diets; the ways in which say kumara were cultivated; different uses and varieties of fish, the food that was hunted and collected prior to the arrival of European lifestyles.
It may involve discussions around hosting and guesting; around practices of manaakitanga; around cultural norms of respect, hospitality, appreciation and protocol.
It may involve discussions around significant rituals of engagement, dialogue about histories and traditions, in short, much more than an NCEA approved grocery list.
I was interested in a comment by Anae Arthur Anae a couple of years ago, and I quote:
We want “to ensure that all Pacific Island people will be healthier than anybody else and proud to be healthy as we once were in the past, before the Palagi introduced us to Pisupo, Povi Masima, tinned fish, Kentucky Fried and McDonalds and Coke”.
It is really important to find ways to open up the discussion.
If I think about a meal that in some Maori homes remains our staple diet, the boil-up, I know that it certainly wasn’t a meal my tipuna ever ate – so where does it trace its source? What is the influence of colonisation? What is the influence of socio-economic pressure?
And I think about how in impoverished circumstances, the leftover cuts of meat; the pork trotters; the fish-heads would be thrown away and our old people used to be incredibly proficient at ‘making do’.
The boil-up can also be seen as symptomatic of levels of hardship – which The Social Report tells us is increasing with Maori and Pasifika peoples over-represented in levels of severe hardship.
In this way, then the boil-up could also be seen as an opportunity for a discussion around thrifty practises; the values of our cultural practices which give priority to conservation, to preservation, and are opposed to the wastage of kai – he mau mau kai.
The importance of all of this debate and opportunity for learning, is not so that we all become cultural experts, or specialists in historical authenticity.
But it is about being ready and willing to listen and learn. Asking the questions; allowing space for the conversation to take place. Some may call it critical inquiry; others may label it deconstruction; I think of it as simply opening up the door to enable the korero to happen.
That to me is my ideal of a healthy person, a healthy whanau – where our wellbeing and lifestyle are open to critique.
Another example might be in the field of auahi kore, of tobacco prevention. I am just so delighted to come to this conference today, hot with the news that for the third year in a row, the rate of smoking among Maori girls has dropped.
Research released by ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) last week revealed that the percentage of Year 10 Maori girls who have never had even one puff of a cigarette increased from 12.4% in 1999, to 23.5% in 2006.
But one of the most telling facts in the study was the fact that whereas in homes where both parents smoke, 33% of the young people in the survey are also smokers; in homes where both parents are non-smokers; only 7.6% of students had picked it up.
That to me was a huge affirmation of a campaign I was once part of called, ‘It’s all about Whanau”.
My motivation then, as it was now, was all about my mokopuna. And I remember the research that Moana Maniapoto shared with us as part of Quitgroup at that time, which made it absolutely clear, that the way for Maori to give up smoking, was by targeting the whanau.
The key is not in nicotine patches, or hard-hitting posters, or any promotional gimmick in isolation of the bigger picture – the bigger picture being whanaungatanga, the recognition that the people are our wealth.
And again, this is where I return to the difference between tino rangatiratanga, the self-determining authority of whanau, hapu and iwi; and those who are the bridge-builders, the cause champions of cultural competency.
Last week we had the honour of hosting the world renowned political activist and leader, Professor Angela Davis. During the visit, we talked of many things in building and supporting community mobilisation.
One of the ideas that came forward was about a book published earlier this year by Women of Colour Against Violence, called The Revolution will not be funded. The theory is that many social justice organisations have become compromised by the relentless drive to satisfy government and foundation mandates.
But in building a movement, the hard questions need to be asked…..how do the constraints placed upon the group shape the movement? How is dissent managed? What is the purpose of the movement if it becomes dependent on the funding that restricts its very action?
I would be the last to suggest that the New Zealand Health Teachers Association Conference will not be funded, or indeed, that in the midst of this audience is the core of an activist movement for change.
But I think the concept is worth exploring. You, me, us will each come to the revolution with a different cultural aspiration; a different path towards our own self-determining destiny.
The pathways we take will ultimately be determined best by our own communities of interest; our own cultural networks.
We must not be so pressured in studying under other people, under other frameworks, operating under other values, that we neglect our own authenticity in the process.
Mo tatou, a, mo ka uri a muri ake nei.
For us and our children after us.
It will mean something different to each of us. The key is understanding that expertise is not wrapped up in one single manifestation of Uenuku; one single curriculum area; one single health teacher.
Together, all together, may we find the pathways to a future that truly includes and challenges us all.
ENDS
Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
a.supporter:hover {background:#EC4438!important;} @media screen and (max-width: 480px) { #byline-block div.byline-block {padding-right:16px;}}
Using Scoop for work?
Scoop is free for personal use, but you’ll need a licence for work use. This is part of our Ethical Paywall and how we fund Scoop. Join today with plans starting from less than $3 per week, plus gain access to exclusive Pro features.
Join Pro Individual Find out more
Find more from The Maori Party on InfoPages.