Liana Hamlin’s passion for mahi māra (gardening) started at a young age with her grandparents. She was nurtured in the ways of her old people in how to grow and preserve food.
Many years later the 34-year-old is now the Community Kai Champion in the Manawatū region.
Hamlin hails from the Mahia Penninsula, and is of Ngāti Kahungunu and Rongomaiwahine descent, but has lived in Palmerston North for most of her life.
When Hamlin become a mother of two, she says she experienced the struggle of the cost of living, so she started thinking of ways of becoming more self-sufficient.
These days she spearheads initiatives promoting food sovereignty, and supports community initiatives like installing compost bins and vegetable gardens in schools and homes. Hamlin’s efforts empower her community to become more self-sufficient, and she says, she wants to help whānau “not only to just survive, but to thrive”.
Whānau struggling
“I think just in the past few years, since the whole pandemic, more people are learning about māra kai and giving it more attention but I think it’s been pushed to the front a bit more in terms of food security, the economy, and whānau are completely struggling at the moment. Māra kai is about interconnecting with everyone on that same path and trying to help our whānau, not only to just survive but to thrive.”
“Growing up, I’ve always been around my koro, my grandparents. They were hearty old-school white baiters, setting nets, fishing, and so that’s kind of how I grew up. About six years ago, I decided I wanted to learn how to hunt, and so that’s how my passion for hunting and gathering our own kai started.
“In terms of māra kai, my koro, my grandfather, was the green thumb in our whānau. So again, just always growing up around him with his backyard covered in māra.”
“When I became a mother,11 years ago, I started thinking, we’ve got little tamariki to feed now. So, that’s when my passion for māra kai started,” Hamlin says.
“It’s just about interconnecting with all these different kaupapa that are tutelary to the people and the cause of being more self-sufficient, teaching people our knowledge, the mātauranga. We also garden by māramataka.”
Hamlin says she enjoys the ‘boots on the ground’ approach to her work. And everywhere she goes on the job, she hears about people’s struggles.
“I’m involved with the Manawatu Food Action Network. I’m boots on the ground. Every week, I help provide māra kai for whānau. We give them soil, boxes, veggie plants, seeds. And just the kōrero that’s happening across the board is just phenomenal.
“Everyone’s struggling. I am struggling. It’s rent prices, mortgages, petrol, bills, everything’s gone up. So, everyone’s struggling across the board. And I see that first-hand going out. We have whānau who work full-time and are still struggling.
“I’m also involved in community fruit. And so that’s another good kaupapa where we go into people’s backyards, and we take excess fruit. And then we redistribute it for free. And so that’s saving kai, redistributing it to pātaka kai and whānau. And we’ve saved 12 tonnes this year of fruit. And we’re not even finished. We’ve got a big harvest on tomorrow. And that’ll probably be maybe half a tonne,” she says.
‘Good to have a laugh’
Hamlin shares her knowledge and experiences in an online series called Walk with Larnz. The series features Hamlin and her two children. Hamlin says she enjoys doing any outdoor activities with her kids.
“That kind of just started as a bit of a joke, and that’s something for me and my babies to share what we’re up to in terms of everything across the board with food sovereignty. So, we put up hunting, seed sowing, wananga. We do fishing, diving. We do fruit harvesting, preserving, dehydrating, all that kind of stuff. I share a few memes on there just to give people a bit of a laugh, you know, because life’s pretty tough at the moment and it’s good to have a laugh.”
“I had received a small grant this year, which has enabled me to receive some fishing rods, mincers, etc. And so that small grant this year helped me to reach about 150 whānau in terms of education, support with equipment for them to go out on their own. And that’ll be an ongoing thing.
“Just over the weekend I had a message from a solo father. So, with that small grant, we supported him to get his gun licence. And he took his young tamaiti out this weekend, and his boy shot his first deer. They came over home and they borrowed the mincer and went off and did it all themselves. It’s the little things like that. That’s why we do what we do. To help people, to mana enhance people to go out and do things like that themselves,” Hamlin says.
With Christmas just around the corner, Hamlin says during the festive season whānau should be more content with what they have and who they have.
“Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve personally helped about 20 whānau with food boxes. And we don’t put that up online because we want to help whānau but we don’t want to shove people’s struggles in other people’s faces. So 20 whānau have received Christmas hampers in terms of food and MPI-certified meat.”
“Me and my tamariki won’t be doing much this Christmas. We’ve been raised and conditioned to think that the narrative is money and to buy, and consumerism. And so, what we are focusing on these holidays is just quality time. We’re chasing sunsets this summer. It’s going to be beaches, diving, hunting for us. I think people need to be more content with what they have and who they have,” Hamlin says.
‘I was shocked. This is just normal’
Hamlin was one of five nominees from the Whanganui-Manawatū region, nominated for this year’s New Zealander of the Year Award. Past winners of the award include last year’s winner Professor Rangi Mataamua, Sir Tipene O’Regan, Mike King and Taika Waititi.
“I’ve always been one of those people who are in the background, doing the mahi over there. And it hasn’t really been until the last year, when I got involved with Manawatu Food Action Network and Community Fruit Harvest, that I was pushed by other people to start coming out a bit more.
“I completely and wholeheartedly appreciate being nominated. Kiwibank people said that there were just multiple applications for me so they couldn’t ignore it, and I was a bit shocked because for me this is just life, it’s normal, it’s just helping one another, trying to spread love, trying to heal, trying to thrive, and helping others to do so I’m really appreciative,” Hamlin says.