“It’s not like one of those illnesses that come in and attack straight away. It’s a slow sneaky killer.”
That is how a whānau member from Māngere described living with Type 2 Diabetes. Words that carry weight, not just physical, but spiritual, emotional, relational words that the western health system rarely has time to sit with.
For Healthy Families South Auckland (The Cause Collective), those words are not just a quote. They are a challenge. They are why we have spent years building our Oranga Whakapapa initiative, and why we are now placing our Oranga Hou, Oranga Whakapapa Wellness Kit into the hands of whānau through Māngere Health, alongside a live referral pathway to Rongoā practitioners in Tāmaki Makaurau.
What is Oranga Whakapapa?
Oranga Whakapapa is our strategy for addressing the health inequities that exist for Māori in South Auckland. At its heart is a vision: intergenerational health, financial security, and self-determination for whānau Māori. Whakapapa describes the web of relationships, histories, and connections that shape who we are. Oranga Whakapapa names a state where those connections are healthy, thriving, and forward-facing.
Disrupting the dominant western discourse of prevention is central to this work. Our approach embeds Māori knowledge and practice across everything we do, because whānau have told us clearly – services built entirely on western frameworks often fail to meet our people where they are.
Hāpaitia te ara tika kia pūmau ai te rangatiratanga mō ngā uri whakatipu. Foster the pathway of knowledge to strength, independence and growth for future generations.
Oranga Hou, Oranga Whakapapa – The Wellness Kit
Oranga Hauora is the physical expression of this kaupapa. It is a wellness kit designed specifically for whānau Māori living with Type 2 Diabetes but calling it a kit almost undersells it. This is not a pamphlet. It is a carefully designed, culturally grounded experience that places mātauranga Māori directly into the hands of whānau. It contains three components:
Rau Rākau: Mindful Māori movement using rākau (stick), supported by a YouTube video guide. Accessible at home, grounded in tradition, designed to support Te taha tinana in a way that feels familiar. Whānau have shared: “It was awesome for the tinana but what benefited me most was the wairua.” Movement became reconnection.
Rongoā: The traditional system of healing encompassing plant medicine, physical therapies like Romiromi, and spiritual practice. It sees the whole person – wairua, hinengaro, tinana and whānau – before anything is prescribed. Clinical medicine can measure HbA1c levels. Rongoā can address the grief, the trauma, the disconnection that drives those levels higher in the first place.
Te Ara Oranga: The companion booklet that holds the whole kit together. It supports whānau to engage with confidence and ensures the knowledge belongs to them not locked inside a health system that often speaks in language that excludes.
Navigating two completely different worlds of medicine
Let’s be honest about how hard this is. Western medicine and Rongoā Māori do not just have different tools they have different foundations. Different ways of understanding what causes illness, what healing looks like and who holds authority in the room.
We’re not asking GPs to deliver Rongoā, nor are we asking Rongoā practitioners to conform to clinical frameworks. We don’t want to replace diabetes medication with kawakawa. We are building a referral bridge, one that respects the integrity of both systems and lets each do what it does best. That sounds simple but it’s not. It requires constant conversation, clear boundaries, and deep trust between people trained to see the world very differently.
Our referral pathway is built on non-negotiable principles: Tino Rangatiratanga of the practitioner; whānau consent and mana; Rongoā as complementary, not competitive; and cultural safety for all.
Why Māngere Health?
Māngere Health serves a community we know and care about deeply, with more than 2,000 Māori patients enrolled in their clinic. Our people are showing up to services that were not designed with them in mind. That is not a criticism of Māngere Health, it’s a structural reality that they, like us, want to change.
We have submitted a formal proposal inviting them into a genuine partnership to identify whānau with Type 2 Diabetes or pre-diabetes, introduce the Oranga Hou Kit during consultations, support HbA1c data tracking, and initiate Rongoā referrals for whānau who are ready and willing. Whānau trust Māngere Health, and that trust is the bridge we need.
What comes next…
The first cohort of Oranga Hou- Wellness Kits will be distributed through Māngere Health in September 2026, with Rongoā referrals following shortly after. We will track HbA1c levels at baseline, three months and six months. We’ll also gather stories and listen carefully.
By January 2027, we’ll be able to tell a story grounded in evidence at a Māori prevention system level that can be integrated alongside mainstream primary care. The story will show how this approach improves outcomes for whānau, and that the mainstream system is willing to make room for it.
He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata. What is the greatest thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.
That is what we are building toward.