A South Taranaki hapū has set up an arts, construction and horticulture training centre on land that took a decade to get back, even after a Treaty settlement.
Ōkahu-Inuāwai opened Tokaora Te Tapuae Pae Pātūtū on Friday on the site of the former Tokaora School, just outside Hāwera.
The new centre has a retail art gallery and training studio, with a conference room for hapū and community use.
The site already hosts a house-building course and Ōkahu-Inuāwai plans an expanding horticulture training programme.
The former Tokaora School was a rare piece of Ōkahu-Inuāwai territory in public hands after Crown confiscations in the 1860s.
The hapū earmarked it for return in 2006, during the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process.
Ngāruahine’s 2014 Deed of Settlement labelled it a Deferred Selection Procedure property, meaning the iwi had to buy it back.
But the old school became stuck in a lengthy dispute over asbestos and lead contamination.
The hapū finally bought back the 1.6-hectare property for $425,000 through Te Korowai o Ngāruahine, the iwi’s post-settlement entity.
Te Korowai chair Emma Gardiner said the iwi agency has a whenua re-acquisition policy to devolve settlement property to hapū, with help from its Toitū Fund.
“It’s a revolving fund … that all our hapū can access – and then they utilise that to re-acquire all the remaining Rights of First Refusal land, including even private land.”
Ngāti Tamaahuroa rāua ko Titahi hapū also recently bought back a Deferred Selection Procedure property, Gardiner said.
Ōkahu-Inuāwai co-chair John Hooker said the on-site multi-trade construction course, run with the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki, was currently building its third house.
The houses were relocated to papakāinga land as low-cost rentals for hapū members.
Horticulture training focused on kai sovereignty and eco-sourced native plant restoration was next, said Hooker.
“In term one next year, 2027, we hope to have a formal horticultural module operating.”
Māra (food gardens) would be established at Tokaora Te Tapuae Pae Pātūtū and nearby Aotearoa Pā to feed families affordably.
Nursery areas at both sites would produce seedlings for the banks of the Waingōngōro River.
“We hope to be eco-sourcing a lot of our native plants from here, and we’ve got a hapū riparian project to plant from the sea to the Maunga along the Waingōngōro.”
Hooker said they wanted to be able to safely harvest kai from the river.
“Some times of the year, we can’t even swim in it: so, we want to be able to take kai out of it and be able to swim.”
Hapū co-chair Angela Kerehoma has leased space in the old school for a gallery, Toi Rarau, where iwi artists can sell their work.
“I’ve established … a retail section that focuses on social enterprise, so bringing in artists, kaitoi ō Ngāruahine, and allowing them a place to sell their taonga, their arts and in doing that we collaborate, collectivise and become stronger.”
Kerehoma plans workshops and wānanga focused on weaving in collaboration with hapū and iwi.
Hāwera Christian School formerly leased the old school site from Land Information New Zealand.
Kerehoma said the hapū was pleased children no longer had daily exposure to the potential risk of old asbestos and lead paint.
Remaining toxic materials were contained according to industry standards, she said.
“We manage it, and we are working now to remove what little there is left.”
