Nga Toi WhakaMANAwaroa – Arts for Resilience workshops

Nga Toi WhakaMANAwaroa is an initiative that aims to mentor young people, especially Maori, who face everyday challenges and equip them with tools to enable recovery from adversaries.  Creative arts become the catalyst for korero based on Manawaroa – Resilience. In this project ‘resilience’ is understood as a capacity to do well despite adverse experience. The group’s focus is to build the mana of the participants by creating opportunities to have encounters of discovery and initiate authentic conversations about life’s challenges and successes.  The workshops also teach valuable technical and developmental creative skills while building connections between the students, valuing their stories and allowing the discussion to flow hence encouraging the transformation of negative mindsets to positive ones.

The foundations of the group’s values will be based on six guiding values that will underpin the programme:
·  Whanaungatanga- It’s about being connected
·  Whakapapa- Knowing who you are and where you belong
·  Mana/Manaaki –Building the mana of each other, through nurturing, growing and challenging
·  Korero Awhi – Positive communication and actions
·  Tikanga – Doing things the right way, according to our values
·  Wairua /Mauri ora – Spiritual connection

Mike has been running value-based art programs for the last seven years through his role as a youth mentor for different Social Services. The aim is to put a group of 10-12 young people through each programme.  The group will run 1.5 -2hrs a week for ten weeks. It is intentional to keep the group numbers intimate to maximise the intentionality with the participants.

Wheku Design partners with professionals with a clinical background who can support participants that may have reconnected with difficult feelings during the programme.