Rēhua Marae is an urban, Maata Waka/pan-Māori marae, located near the centre of Christchurch. It was established in the 1950s by the Methodist Church, as a trade training academy and hostel for boys training to be painters, mechanics and carpenters. This carried on until the 1980s, and the former hostel building, on the marae grounds, is currently being refurbished, as a community facility and as whānau accommodation (a Lottery Community Facilities grant has been awarded to support this project, and an Oranga Marae grant has been awarded for another project on the marae.)
With COVID-19, and the following lockdown, the marae worked hard keeping connections going, for the kaumātua, and for the wider community. There are some kaumātua flats on site, and one of the marae services that has been running for a long time is a twice-weekly kaumātua day programme, Te Kaitaka Tupuna o Rēhua, for four or five hours each time. It is open to kaumātua living at the marae, and to those living in the wider community, and includes a range of activities, such as waiata, raranga and introductory reo Māori.
Christchurch kaumātua play the hand that's been dealt by COVID-19 and adapt to having their valuable meet-ups online, having 'Zoom Hui'
During the lockdown, the kaumātua were isolated from each other, as well as from others in the community. The marae worked hard to help kaumātua to connect digitally, which involved starting from the very basics, such as, in some cases, organising for a cell phone and broadband, and educating the kaumātua on how to use technology – with all of this digital training being done over the phone or other device. Sometimes it involved sending numbered photos showing what a certain screen looked like, explaining what a browser is, instructing where and what to click, and so on.
Through this, there was a first kaumātua Zoom hui, and there were more to come. Assistance has also been provided for kaumātua to get set up with online banking and online shopping (in addition to deliveries by the marae).
The marae also regularly runs Hauora Hui, often with a speaker from a Māori Health service, or from an agency or organisation. Recent examples have been the Canterbury Medical Officer of Health and the Kia Kaha Chemist. The hui are open to anyone in the community, and usually there are approximately 20-40 attendees. These hui are going to be run virtually in the meantime, focussing on COVID-19-related topics especially, they advise, “topics such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) which features high in Maori communities and places Maori in the at risk category for Covid-19 fatalities”. Assisting the kaumātua to be able to access the digital world will open up these hui for them to also take part.
As the marae spokesperson said, “For many of our kaumātua, the link to the internet world will be life changing and mana enhancing”.