Agencies join forces to offer whānau awhi at vaccine centres

Local iwi health providers Turanga Health and Ngati Porou Hauora, supported by Hauora Tairawhiti and Toitu Tairawhiti Collective, have joined forces to ensure local Maori whanau have every opportunity to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

The health providers open their whanau vaccination venues on Monday.
No appointment is needed.

A whanau approach is nothing new for Maori.

“We are now taking on this approach as a method to address vaccine hesitancy,” said Turanga Health chief executive Reweti Ropiha.

The message from iwi providers is “come along with the whanau and get to sense the great vaccine experience, demystify the Covid jargon, korero with whanau in the vaccine space, put the patai (questions) to the kaimahi (staff) experts and do it all within an atmosphere of manaaki (hospitality) and awhi (support)”.

Kaniwa Kupenga-Tamarama, a Maori midwife who is five months hapu (pregnant), and is expecting her fifth baby, received her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine last week.

She encourages all whanau especially hapu mama (expectant mums) to do the same.

Kaniwa and her children are the faces of the whanau approach with the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out.

To see more of Kaniwa's story and to see how to be vaccinated, visit www.Hauoratairawhiti.org.nz

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