23-05-2025
On The Up: Northlander Malcolm Wano on empowering youth with traditional skills
With a forestry background and a passion for passing on knowledge, Wano proves how voluntary, koha-based initiatives can create meaningful social change, one seedling and skill at a time.
He has been volunteering intensively for about the last three years in response to the increased need he sees.
'It's gotten rough out there,' Wano said.
In recent years, he's also noticed a shift from a traditional koha-based (gift/reciprocal) community approach to a funding-dependent model.
In his view, modern community work has become too reliant on waiting for funding before taking action. Traditionally, people would help immediately when they saw a need, Wano said.
Kiahaanga Whakarereke Trust gets some funding from various entities but mainly continues to operate within the traditional spirit. As such, its capacity is limited.
However, within those bounds, it strives to make a deep and lasting impact, Wano said.
Intensive work is usually limited at any one time to a fairly small circle of people, mostly those already known to the trust's members, but it also takes on police referrals.
'We try to get them before they get into much trouble,' Wano said.
'We found that restoring old life skills is probably something that can really have a lasting benefit.
'That's really the aim because restoring a person's identity, helping them to get back to their roots and restoring their mana, enables them to contribute to the community.'
That said, Wano noted people 'have to get to a certain stage in life before they want to make that kind of change'.
Last year, motivated by the cost of living crisis, was the first time in many years that Wano ploughed up the entirety of one of his paddocks to grow kūmara, tomatoes, corn, cabbages, kumikumi aka kamokamo (heritage Māori squash) and other produce.
With the help of whānau, mokopuna, good growing conditions, carefully timed watering, and karakia (prayer), Wano produced a bumper crop, some of which is already being shared around the wider community.
Not only is gardening a good way to address economic challenges and bring people together, but it's also a good way of ensuring whānau get nutritious food, Wano said.
He believed nutritious kai is often the most expensive and a lack of it is a big part of some of today's negative whānau dynamics – 'too many takeaways and not enough real, good, nutritious kai'.
Aware that the cost of seedlings might be putting some whānau off gardening, the trust built a greenhouse at Moerewa, where members raises seedlings to share with the community and hold wānanga on topics like composting, worm farming and seed-keeping.
'I think a lot of people used to do gardening back in the day but it started to fall away. So what we're doing for the younger ones is upskilling them,' Wano said.
'It helps to lift their mana so they feel they're not just taking from their household but being a provider for it.
'A lot of Māori people lose track of their wairua [spirit] and it's really a matter of bringing those things back into a balance – naturally and spiritually. It gives people a good direction," Wano said.
'As we upskill somebody, we give them the means to kick off a garden [maara] in their own place – so that might be box gardens and seedlings, just to get them keen.'
