Tirohanga: restoring mauri (life force) in Waikato
Exploring ways for people to create a lasting legacy for their community in the form of a culturally responsive wellbeing hub
An opportunity for wellbeing
Waikato community foundation Momentum and its funding partner, the Wise Group, were presented with an opportunity. Momentum had been gifted Houchens Retreat, a five-acre property in Kirikiriroa, in the Waikato region of Aotearoa, that had once served as a retreat for priests. They wanted to take the space and push the boundaries by transforming it into a wellness and well-being centre that could benefit the local community with a strong focus on whānau Māori, situated within a catchment area of 14,000 people. Inspired by our previous work in Māori health, the project lead reached out to ThirdStory (then Innovation Unit Australia New Zealand) to support bringing this opportunity to life, with a commitment to co-designing the wellness space with the community.
Building co-design capability with a diagonal slice of community
We collaborated with Momentum, the Wise Group and the Waikato community to co-design the retreat, gathering insights and ideas about what it should feel like and do in order to meet people’s needs and restore mauri.
Twelve co-designers were recruited from across the Waikato to support the co-design journey. The ‘Design Team’ brought to the role a diverse range of experiences of engaging with the community. This team, in many ways, reflected the diversity of the community they were designing for. It consisted of individuals ranging in age from their 20s to their 50s, and included voices from Māori, Pasifika, Pākehā, and migrant communities, as well as individuals living with disabilities.
The team were introduced to methods used in social research to gather the voices of the community. They conducted 32 empathy interviews with people aged from 10-82 years, as well as having more formal discussions with over 30 people, who identified as Māori or Pasifika. They wanted to learn about what wellness and wellbeing meant to them.
Making sense of the data collected saw themes emerge about the needs of the community, along with ideas of how they might respond to those needs. The team developed ‘rough drafts’ of the emerging ideas that were refined and tested with the wider community to learn which best responded to their wellbeing needs and could fit with their lives.
Some of the insights from the co-design process
From Houchens Retreat to Tirohanga
Emerging from the remains of the retreat is Tirohanga, the Houchen Wellness Space (which saw the space used as a food kitchen prior to its transition during Covid-19). Tirohanga has brought the concepts developed by community for community to life. The power of this work is the community deciding what is best for them.
Several of the original concepts developed by the community in the initial phase are now flourishing in the wellness space. New features have been added to supplement the space. What is clear is that they are being true to the original intent of the space; a place to restore one’s mauri.
You can learn more about the co-design of Tirohanga here.
“The beauty of Tirohanga is that it was co-designed with the community, the voices of local people told us what they wanted, how it could serve them, it was not designed by ‘those who know best.”
Project team
Martin James Director, Innovation and People