Taihuringa: Working for Our People
For any idealist, working for your own people sounds like the dream. A conversation this week with a fellow uri of Ngāti Awa, about a potential future project, reminded me of that—and it got me thinking.
After three years at Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa, I look back with pride at the contribution I made to my iwi. As I’ve shared before, I believe I helped rebalance the scales—supporting not only accountability and transparency but doing so in my own lane.
The analytics told their story—a positive one. But so too did the nature of the engagement online. Managing the Rūnanga’s social media accounts was no easy task. Much of my time was spent monitoring sentiment—something numbers alone can’t capture.
After all, to understand impact, you must understand interaction.
While we didn’t always get it right, the tone we set—open, transparent, and willing to share—was well received by an audience that had grown used to being critical. Through consistency, we earned trust. Slowly but surely, we changed how our online community engaged with us.
Some might ask: why bother? Isn't online space just for the lazy, the voyeurs, those who use ChatGPT to shortcut the system?
The truth is, whether we like it or not, our tamariki are digital natives—and thankfully so. They will inherit a world vastly different from the one we grew up in.
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐚—𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐝𝐞.
It is said the new frontier for colonisation is the battle for hearts and minds. But so too lies our opportunity for freedom. After all, knowledge is key.
Our tamariki won’t fear artificial intelligence or new digital landscapes. They will explore them, just as our tīpuna did when they made their great migrations.
Unlike our parents’ generation, they won’t rely on the 6pm news or mainstream media to understand their world. Even Google may soon be outdated in how they search, learn, and connect. The world is changing—swiftly, relentlessly.
Yet one truth remains: just as in the days of Hoaki and Taukata, storytelling still matters. Storytelling shapes narratives. It builds understanding. It anchors identity.
During my final weeks at the Rūnanga, while working out my notice period, I focused on creating lasting digital products for Taihuringa—the Project Management Office, a team deeply involved in mahi with rangatahi.
I wanted their homepage to be dynamic and engaging—to showcase their mahi and leave them with storytelling products for social media that could continue connecting with that wily, important audience: young people.
I built a campaign anchored by a piece of bedrock content—a video telling the story of Taihuringa and its role within the Rūnanga. From there, I designed subpages for each project, scouring our content libraries to build dynamic illustrations that brought the information to life.
Story remained the heartbeat throughout.
On the Te Ara Mahi subpage, I repurposed interview footage with participants to create YouTube videos—shot in landscape to fit the web format. I also used online tools to reframe these videos for social media, adding polish and vibrancy to maximise their impact.
In my final week, I launched a weeklong social media campaign—a way to farewell my mahi, to celebrate the honour of working for my people through Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa.
Cheesy? Maybe. But for a storyteller, it was the perfect way to bow out.
It wasn’t always easy. But it was a privilege.
𝐍𝐨̄𝐤𝐮 𝐭𝐞 𝐡𝐨̄𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞, 𝐧𝐨̄𝐤𝐮 𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐰𝐡𝐢.
