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Waihi Beach Schools Matariki Inspired Community Garden

Mara Kai Design Team

A plan has been hatched in Waihi Beach to build a community garden to assist with food security, but not only that, it has been designed to preserve indigenous Māori food and seed sovereignty.

The Western Bay of Plenty has seen rising numbers of food insecure households due to inequitable access to healthy food, profit before people and poverty, with Toi Te Ora Health and Wellbeing Population Survey 2020 finding that 27 per cent of Western Bay residents were worried about not having enough money to buy food.

A group of enthusiastic community champions, Te Whānau a Tauwhao Hapū and Waihi Beach School, have been working together to design a garden based on Matariki. The cluster of stars that signifies the start of the Māori New Year.

Waihi Beach School Principal Rachael Coll said the class of 21 students who raised their hands to become involved in the project had done an amazing job of designing not just one garden, but nine separate gardens based on the whetū | stars of Matariki. The māra kai | garden will not only assist with food security for families who are struggling to put food on the table but will provide an educational facility, not only teaching people about growing kai, but passing on traditional gardening methods.

Rose Fox, who led the design process, said, “this is a long-term sustainable project but one that has endless and exciting possibilities for the children and our community. Community māra kai’s are so much more than a source of free fruit and veges. They’re a place to learn, make friends and future-proof our food supply. Designing the garden around the children’s ideas was exciting and awe-inspiring – we have also designed something that is a living piece of interactive art”

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To kick start and celebrate the design concept, it was decided that whānautanga | relationships were the top priority for the tamariki involved. The team delivered heritage seed koha | gifts to Otawhiwhi Te Kohanga Reo this week. The tamariki were treated to whakatau | welcoming and sharing of kai, discussed the community māra plans, and were shown around the Kohanga’s māra kai.

Live Well Waihi Beach, who are the drivers behind the project, are now seeking funding and have already secured sponsorship of one of the nine gardens. It is hoped the spade | hō will go in the ground on this year’s Matariki public holiday, Friday, 14 July 2023. The garden will be built on an underutilised part of reserve land situated on Beach Road, with community consultation underway concerning the land use.

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