Maatua Whangai bids to resuscitate a stifled culture system

Press, 28 November 1987, Page 25

Maatua Whangai bids to resuscitate a stifled culture system

It is no coincidence that Maatua Whangai developed in the aftermath of a snap election, when the new Labour Government tried to smother the rising flames of racial tension by casting the net of devolution. Difficulties associated with returning power to Maori tribal authorities, especially when previous Governments had conveniently ignored such authority, had to be immense.

It was a policy which, not surprisingly, came to mean many things to many people. Much-maligned white liberals saw it as a means of returning power to the (Maori) people. The equally maligned conservative Right-wing saw a threat in power falling into the hands of people they maintained did not have the ability to handle it. This was a view that escalated with the Fiji coup.

For Maoridom, the policy signalled a chance to use iwi (tribal authorities) and their whanau (extended families) to rescue and restore a cultural system which had been denied the right to exist in mainstream society, and was therefore floundering. It meant using Maori ways to deal with problems affecting Maori people. Within Maoridom, there are those who believe that the new policy should be controlled byMaori alone. Others see it as only working in partnership with pakeha people who have skills which can be offered to make it a success. It could be a system that creates more jobs for both races.

Maatua Whangai workers in Christchurch say they had no choice but to develop a special attitude in a bid to make. the policy work.

“We have learned the hard way. It is a case of being as wise as serpents and as humble as doves,” says Arthur Kapa, chairman bf the core committee.

For Maatua Whangai, devolution means being handed power but gagged with it. They are still accountable to a pakeha system which, they say, should be ac 7 countable to them in Maori matters.

Maatua Whangai has already made some sharp attacks on statistics relating to the Maori population in prison and other institutions. Its success is owed

JANE ENGLAND

looks at the Maatua

Whangai approach by Maoris who are taking on power that used to be held by others.

more to the workers themselves than to the “new” policy, for If the wheels of devolution are turning at all, they are turning slowly. It is some years since Arthur visited a home for disturbed, unhappy teenagers and found the stage too small to accommodate the 20 girls performing in a Maori cultural entertainment group. Rather than longing for a bigger stage, he yearned for a day when a stage would no longer be needed. When apologies began flowing from the lips of social workers, he gave a snap reply: "If I do my job properly, you won’t have any Maori girls on your stage at all.” The Maatua Whangai team consists of Arthur Hare Wiremu, a senior social worker, Ina Farrar, seconded from the Department of Social Welfare, and Mike Baker, from the Department of Maori Affairs.

Original focus recommended

Their strength has been forged by carrying a heavy load because the programme does not belong to the Maori community in a way they were told it would be. The problems lie not in policy, but in attitudes which pervade the social system. “There has to be a willingness to accept that we are no longer second-rate citizens,” says Arthur Kapa. When a Ministerial Advisory Committee last year came out with its grilling Puao-Te-ata-Tu (daybreak) report on the need for an adequate Maori perspective for the Department of Social Welfare, both the media and the Government were quick to react. A “Press” report at the time called it a “stark portrait of Maori society in despair and on its financial, social and cultural knees."

The (then) Minister of Social

Welfare, Ann Hercus, was quick to pledge that the decades of waiting for a better deal would now be over for the Maori people.

The report recommended that Maatua Whangai should be able to return to its original focus of nurturing children with the family group. Additional funding would be allocated by the department for board payments and grants to be paid to tribal trusts so that tribal authorities would strengthen the development of hapu (sub-tribes) and iwi.

Programmes would be monitored by the department, and the reimbursement grant for volunteers would be increased to a "realistic” level.

For the last few years, the Christchurch Maatua Whangai has been operating on $lO,OOO a year. This was recently increased to $lB,OOO. Voluntary workers like Arthur Kapa are paid $5O a year for their services. Hare Wiremu says it is humiliating.

“I have to fill out a form requesting approval to pay these people $5O a year. It would be much better and more honest if we were given a total allocation to do with as we wished. Then at the end of the year, we could give them a present of food, something they really needed, instead of a token $50.”

By nurturing young people, Maatua Whangai wants to starve the penal institutions of Maori people. In Christchurch, that objective appears to be succeeding. In the year 1984-85, when Maatua Whangai was forming, 977 young Maoris, including a few Pacific Islanders, appeared in the Children and Young Persons’ court. By the year 1985-86, the number had dropped to 771. In 1986-87, there were 650. “We are not really allowed to use the figures like this, and we find that quite insulting. It would cost the Government $30,000 a year to keep one of those young people in an institution and yet

we are working on a pittance to keep them out,” says Arthur Kapa. Even though Maatua Whangai has proved its ability to rescue Maori youth on limited funding, the “willingness” to perceive it as a separate entity remains nothing more than a flicker of hope at the end of the corridor of bureaucracy. The team is full of praise for individuals like the district director of Social Welfare, Maurice Doocey. But the problem, they say, is out of his hands.

"He is very helpful, but the problem lies with middle management, when things get away from him and into the system,” says Mr Kapa. Maurice Doocey speaks cautiously about the problem. The system is changing but the challenge presented in changing a monocultural system to meet Maori needs is enormous, he says.

“We need to become conscious of the value of the Maori and their ability to nurture and rehabilitate their own people through the whanau (extended family).” At first, Arthur Kapa was adamantly opposed to the idea of allowing Maatua Whangai to have its own statutory powers because he was afraid of “misuse.” What changed his mind? The explanation comes in the form of a story. Picture representatives from the Department of Social Welfare sitting directly opposite a young person and members of the tribal family. “We, Maatua Whangai are sitting in the middle. The family want to take the child home to the North Island. We know what they want and agree. Social Welfare on the other side know what they want and disagree. They refuse even to try it.” That situation is just one among many that has proved “very, very frustrating.” What Maatua Whangai wants is only what the initial report recommended: the process that separates children from their wider family must cease. The idea that a group of experts know what is best must be challenged. On Maori issues, Maori people stand alone, and they want the right to prepare themselves for the “unenviable” right of looking after their own people.

“The question is whether the system will allow us the right to do this ourselves,” says Arthur Kapa. On this score, he recites what he acknowledges as a “ridiculous” statement, but no more ridiculous than the system which ignores the cultural needs of Maori children. “You have screwed our kids up. Why not let us screw our own kids up?” says Mr Kapa, his mouth forming a wry smile at the absurdity of the situation. “The fact is we really cannot do worse. If mistakes are going to be made, let them be contained within Maoridom, the tribe, the whanau, and let us deal with them in our way.” Maatua Whangai workers in Christchurch represent three tribes from the North Island. The children they serve represent many others containing hundreds of people willing to support and nurture the child.

Arthur Kapa is prepared to bet that wherever a child is in trouble, the whanau wants to be part of the action in resolving the problem. In contrast, the European system which placed Maori children in the hands of pakeha foster or adoptive parents has been guilty of cultural neglect, and has

created severe problems for adults and children, he says. The identity crisis many teenagers face is often compounded by adoption. That crisis becomes further heightened when a child’s ethnic origins have not been recognised or reflected in placement. Many of the children yearning to find their cultural roots misguidedly turn to gangs. “I remember arriving at one home to find the pakeha woman weeping on the kitchen floor. She was crying: ’What have I done?’ She had been marvellous to the boy, but when it got to the stage where he needed to find his roots, he turned to a gang. It broke their hearts — and they were a dear couple.” Many “marvellous” pakeha people trying to do their best in working with such children face hurt and heartbreak at the end of the day, he says. "They feel they have been wasting their time, and rightly so because after all their efforts the children have gone to the streets. "The Department of Social Welfare is responsible for that heartbreak, and pakeha couples should be warned it could happen.”

Critics might say it is difficult proving the relationship between

positive, statistics and the birth and growth of Maatua Whangai. But information linking the two has been coming from the heijarchy within Social Welfare. At the other end of the spectrum, gang leaders have confided in Arthur Kapa that, since Maatua Whangai came oh the scene, they are having problems gaining new recruits. - . The courts are no longer taking Maatua Whangai lightly either, he says. “The mere fact that we appear on the scene is important. If we feel a decision is bad, we go out and prove it.”

Reputation from court input

Maatua Whangai’s input into the court system has earned the team the reputation of “smart Maoris,” he says, "and we make no apologies for that If we feel a lawyer is not doing his or her best for our people, we intervene and make sure they do their best.”

Many young Maori people used to feel doomed before they appeared in court. Maatua Whangai sees its people pay for doing

• Literary reviews, page 27 • Business news, pages 29-36 • Racing, page 38

wrong while making sure they have a chance in court that is now on a par with the pakehas’ chance.

Through Maatua Whangai workers and their link with individual tribes and whanau, a valuable support network can be employed to ensure that reoffending declines. The reason for the programme's success lies in accountability not to the department, but to the people. “We come from different tribes, and we are accountable to those tribes. The main thrust of our success comes from the Katimatua in each area, and that, is the way it should be. “The time for putting ■* our heads in the sand has long gone. We are learning now to speak oUt for our people, opr young. “It has not been an easy task' We used to thnk we might drown — we didn’t drown, but we sure choked, and we are still choking now.”

There is a way to set Maatua Whangai free and let it truly .develop in the way it needs to, says Arthur Kapa. “Shakespeare said all the world was a stage, and the men and women are merely players. I say let us. be a part of designing that stage so we can all perform together.”