The Thinking Behind Tiwaiwaka

We need to find a way of living sustainably with Mother Earth, not just for us, but for everybody. We need to tell that story in a way, in time, that everybody will not just accept, but positively embrace and work to make happen. It can happen; it needs to happen.

It needs to happen to ensure that those who follow us will have a world to live in that will sustain them, and not just us but all the living creatures that are part of the family of life. At the moment that future looks much less certain.

We believe we can help make this happen. We can touch people, move people, give them hope. We can connect more and more people, and together we can effect real change.

Together we can be like the rain that comes at the end of a long drought. Just as the brown and burnt hills slowly begin to turn to green and then burst into new life, so we want to bring hope to a dry and desperate world.

To do this we need to earn enough to be able to carry our message without the day to day stress of trying to make ends meet. We need to be able to find the resources not just to carry our message but to do so in a way that stops us from burning out.

Our energy comes from the whenua, the living growing earth with all its beauty, from the ngahere (forests), from the rivers and mountains, the special places where Papatūānuku still retains that gift of life that once flourished throughout all of Aotearoa.

We belong to the whenua. We need to be able to reconnect when we need to, so that we can keep bringing that message of hope.

We all walk that journey, at times on a knife edge, often too close to slipping and falling, too close to giving up in despair and defeat. If we give up now we will never find peace.

We need each other. Tiwaiwaka is about giving each other strength.

- Written by Rob McGowan 2019