One of our smallest communities is showing what a big impact individuals can have on global issues like climate change and sustainability.

Te Kaha is home to just 400 people including Te Ataarangi Parata. She is passionate about teaching others how to get back to basics when it comes to nourishing the soil, growing your own kai, and recycling or using sustainable products.

“It’s a way of saving our planet, saving money and saving our families,” Te Ataarangi explains. “I want to awaken people to the tools we’ve already got and give them the confidence to use them again.

“We’ve forgotten how to grow a plant without having to open a book or look it up online. And we don’t need to necessarily follow linear and capitalist systems like going to the supermarket. We need to stop thinking as individuals and re-train our minds to think about our family, our neighbour, and our two neighbours down the road.”

Te Ataarangi works for Para Kore Marae Incorporated, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes zero-carbon and zero-waste practices within Māori communities by providing programmes, workshops, mentoring, and resources.

She works with whanau in the Te Whānau-ā-Apanui region which stretches down the coast and inland from Te Kaha. Her three key programmes are Te Mahi Wairākau (composting), Mara Kai (growing food) and Kope Tautāiao (reusable nappies).

“It’s by word of mouth and I just have a wee korero with people about their aspirations and dreams and it just carries on from there. I will decipher what they need but the more the merrier. I love people asking questions. I might talk to a child down the road, and then that child tells his sister, and the sister tells her auntie, and it carries on and on.”

Digging The Dirt

The composting programme teaches whanau the basics of composting and soil building so they can start and maintain a compost system. Isolated communities do not have regular rubbish collections and often families cannot afford council rubbish dump fees – so they burn or bury rubbish instead.

“I was working with one whanau to teach them about composting and I helped them understand what they were really doing to the earth and the air when they burned or buried rubbish. I asked to look at their rubbish and we talked about how other people could repurpose some of those things. So it’s thinking about what can we compost to help heal the soil. What can we recycle? What can we share?”

Grow Your Own

Through the Maara Kai programme, Te Ataarangi teaches people how to grow their own food but also to think about how much they actually need and where their food comes from, to help foster sustainable living and community building.

“Why do we have to have so much food? Why do we have to spend so much money? And then we can look at the bigger picture of global emissions and the role we all play. But we have to start on a small scale because small communities do mean something. I try to help them understand how they contribute and it all goes hand in hand with the simple concept of growing your own kai.”

Eco-Friendly Nappies

Te Ataarangi has recently partnered with a local kōhanga reo to help deliver the third programme and connect with families. She educates parents on the environmental benefits and practicalities of using reusable nappies to enhance their whanau wellbeing.

Around 30 local families have been given kope tautāiao in the past two years thanks to Te Ataarangi’s efforts to divert nappy waste from landfills.

“They can’t afford to buy them new. They’re very expensive and people here just can’t front up with that money. So they would never ever have this opportunity to use these nappies if I wasn’t able to hand them out.”

Practical Tools

Changing hearts and minds is one thing, but the key to Te Ataarangi and Para Kore’s success is being able to educate and supply the resources required.

BayTrust has recently given Para Kore a $20,000 grant to help cover operational costs in the Te Whānau-ā-Apanui region. This will help cover Te Ataarangi’s wages but also buy more reusable nappies and wipes, gardening tools, seedlings, worm farms and composting bins to give to families who want to embrace what they’ve learned.

Para Kore Team Leader Hollie Russell says recent cuts to government funding meant the organisation wasn’t certain it could afford to continue operating in places like Te Kaha. But thanks to BayTrust and Opotiki District Council, Te Ataarangi’s work can now carry on.

“Te Whānau-ā-Apanui were at this really amazing and critical moment so this grant will just help push things to the next level. Te Ataarangi’s work is having a really positive response from the community. Rather than just offering one or two community workshops, we can now afford to offer programmes that have ongoing support wrapped around them.”

Te Ataarangi describes the BayTrust grant as a lifeline. “For a little place, we matter. This money helps us to be sustainable for ourselves. If I teach my auntie, she’s going to teach her mokopuna. So BayTrust has not only given us the money, but they’ve given us the tools to teach each other. And that’s the most wonderful, beautiful gift in the world.”