Mana Āniwaniwa has crowd-founded $5,300 from their communities to go to Niagara Falls in the US for the World Indigenous Suicide Prevention Conference.
The organisation was founded to target takatāpui rainbow Māori liberation in light of the discrimination they face daily, including silencing, violence, and oppression.
The rest of the money to travel came from Mana Āniwaniwa and their own pockets.
“It really does take a village to do kaupapa like these,” Quack Pirihi (Patuharakeke, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai) said.
Quack Pirihi and Berea Morrison are going in as teina and tuakana, respectively, in the suicide prevention space.
The teina, Quack Pirihi is the founder of Mana Āniwaniwa, a self-described “cheeky little shit”, climate activist, and community worker, who is currently a student at Te Wānanga o Raukawa.
Tuakana, Berea Morrison (Ngāruahine and Ngāti Ruanui) is a nēhi Māori who works in the suicide prevention and postvention space.
Last year Mana Āniwaniwa was aided by the Youth Movement Fund to deliver suicide prevention wānanga, mahi which will now be expanded upon.
Morrison is a community worker with experience working with her iwi. She said she wants to attend the kaupapa to enable her to continue to build capacity, and offer Indigenous-led grassroots solutions.
“My commitment to this kaupapa is driven by my tupuna and to honour the lives lost to mate whakamomori,” she said.
Pirihi said they connected to their whakapapa through climate action and wants takatāpui to engage with their culture as means of suicide prevention.
Both said they have thought about the privilege of this travel in light of the horrors that Indigenous and queer communities are facing all over the world, especially in Palestine.
“It can be hard to continue on with this mahi but if we don’t use our resources and platform that we have now, when will be a better time?”
Pirihi also reflected on the Treaty Principles Bill and the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora.
“[I’m] currently drowning in uni assignments, my credit cards maxed out to try and do this haerenga, there’s tangi up and down the country, and all of our whānau having to do all this mahi just to keep out our waka moving, we’re still needing to find time to do kaupapa like these.”
The two aim to share their findings and learnings from the conference with the communities and leaders they work with to create change (in the form of resources or wānanga aligned to the interests of the different hapori).
They leave 19 July to attend the conference between 22 and 25 July.