Climbing the Golden Stairs

Tu Tangata, Issue 8, 1 October 1982, Page 18

Climbing the Golden Stairs

Whenua/Land

Pawarenga, North Hokianga. A remote settlement of 40 odd scattered households on the south side of the Whangape Harbour inlet, predominantly Maori and largely Roman Catholic having been served by the Mill Hill Mission fathers and taught by the Sisters of Mercy for many, many years.

The story of the Pawarenga Community Trust

Gloria Herbert co-ordinator

It is a beautiful valley. The Warawara mountains jealously guard the last remnants of the great kauri forests that once clothed all these hills around us, long since plundered. Cold, mountain free streams still tumble down from the natural watersheds to feed into the Rotokakahi river that winds and wends its way to the tidal inlet. There are whitebait in season and good fishing all year round and an* abundance of kai-moana, if you know where to go. It’s a good place to live. Especially if you like the slower pace of life and do not mind the dusty, pot-holed miles of metal road to anywhere. For those who need to keep in touch with the outside world there is a solar-powered transmitter that has beamed in colour T.V. for 3 years now and a 5 day-a-week mail service. There is no denying however that because of its isolation, geographic, social and ethnic; Pawarenga is largely an insular community.

Former years There are in the valley five churches and three marae. Two of the churches, both Catholic, are still used regularly. Also the marae, each-of which services different family groups of Te Uri-o-tai, the people of Pawarenga. They are an indication of former years when there were over 30 dairy farms established in the 1930’s and the daily cream truck was full of cream cans from the settlement alone. Now, there are only 2. The urban migration of the 40’s and 50’s has left its aftermath. A number of the houses built for those early farmers still survive occupied now by a few of our kaumatua with their mokopuna and a variety of social welfare beneticiaries mostly unemployed, the casualties of our current economic climate. This time last year if you cared to, you could have spent a day on a trip to Pawarenga and driven slowly down through the valley to the beach at the end of the road. If it was a weekday you

might have seen a plume of smoke on the river and a group of cars on the roadside indicating the whereabouts of “wombles”, at work on the County Council's clearing P.E.P. project the only work available in Pawarenga. You would have noted the small un-modern homes too many of which need paint and repair, the run-down marae buildings, the fences that need fixing and the land, much of it obviously under-utilised or neglected. And you could easily have made a hasty retreat and a snap judgement of Pawarenga as a place full of no-hopers going nowhere fast. Small signs Come again. Two miles past the Panguru turn-off you will see a sign that certainly wasn’t there last year. Slow up a little; Pawarenga Community Workshop, and uiere it is. A large modern utility building alongside the old Rotokakahi hall that has taken on the new lease of life as an office and

home of the new Pawarenga Community nursery and gardens. Its worth a stop to call in and find out what is going on. When did all this happen? And chances are that this will be the first time you will have heard of the Pawarenga Community Trust.

The names says it all. A trust established initially by 12 people who belong to the community of Pawarenga, and for all of whom this place is their turangawaewae. We are a mixed lot, a true cross-section of the community. Among us we represented the established families and the relevant newcomers; the old and the young; the idealists and the down-to-earthers; the Maori and the Pakeha. Each one of us is able to reach out and relate to different groups and families so that eventually everyone in this community of 200 odd people becomes part of the Trust.

Common factors

The common factor that has brought us together is a caring, a concern for the future of our children, our land, our community. We have the land, those hundreds, perhaps thousands of acres of underdeveloped Maori land all tied up in a complex network of titles and absentee owners. And we certainly have people too many of whom are young, unemployed and unskilled. Land and people. And now, the Pawarenga Community Trust where we pool all our skills such as they are, and our resources and our ideas and work together to help ourselves.

With the help of government wage subsidies and P.E.P. programmes the Trust has organised work in the community with an emphasis on skills training, and work that is satisfying and of continuing benefit to the community.

Another look Take another look then at our workshop and you will see those four young people all under 20 working with a will and purpose. They started in January and helped to build that workshop under skilled supervision from the laying of the foundations to the carving of the tekoteko on top.

With tools and gear ‘borrowed’ from the community they are learning to weld and work with machinery and timber; and once the loan from the Internal Affairs department comes through for equipment there will be a whole range of workshop skills leading to permanent jobs created to service the needs of the community. A positive spin-off is that six of our workers went together to Whangarei to attend a twoday course at the Northland Community College on diesel tractor maintenance and seven more have signed up for selection to attend a month-long welding course arranged by the Dept, of Labour. A two day welding course with Community College tutors is scheduled this week in our own

workshop for 12 people. All of these are first for Pawarenga.

Beautiful nursery The nursery? It’s only a half-minute

walk away through the bush reserve behind the workshop. There are four people here too who started in January. The gardens are growing all sorts of vegetables entirely for local supply and that line of avocadoes and macadamias is the start of our model orchard to show how and what can be grown under local conditions.

The site is beautiful with its boundaries marked by native bush and the Rotokakahi river and will lend itself well to the landscaping we are planning with flowers and trees and imagination. The tree seedlings nursery is our top priority and we started all our seedlings last October with seed bought from the Forest Service for timber and shelter belt trees.

You will understand why when you drive up the hill and look down into Pawarenga valley. Once the native forest was gone no-one seemed to think much about replacing the trees that had vanished forever, so the prevailing westerlies funnel up the Whangape harbour and really blow in from the sea. We intend to lease land soon in Pawarenga to demonstrate how to plant shelter belts and woodlots, how to use land to grow a variety of things, how to use people to work the land. Land and people, our most valuable resources.

In the meantime we have been able to set up other useful projects to provide jobs for our unemployed. St. Gabriel’s for instance, that beautiful old church close to the monument on Taiao

Hill that marks the site of historic Makora Pa from whence came the Aupouri people. They are all that remain, sentinels on a hill overlooking a seaway that was once a part of New Zealand’s early colonial history. With the aid of grants from the Historic Places Trust a group of our men are restoring St. Gabriel’s. Carefully and painstakingly they have lifted it and lowered it onto new solid foundations. They will continue as funds allow until it is finished. For some it is their church where their tupuna lie, for all it is a job worth doing that they are proud of.

Renewing themselves

In a way, St. Gabriel’s is symbolic of what is happening in Pawarenga. As the church has been lifted so are we, the people of Pawarenga, lifting our expectations and laying new foundations to build a future on. As we restore the church we renew ourselves.

The cemetery, once overgrown with weeds and long grass is now clean and tidy, and a scrubcutter and storage shed for tools have been donated to ensure that this cemetery and all the others are kept clean and tidy.

People in the community are feeling good about what is happening and are looking to their own homes. With the help of Maori Affairs a scheme has been approved that will upgrade and renovate existing houses; and the Housing Corporation is investigating the building of a cluster of new rental homes in Pawarenga.

Overcoming All started less than a year ago with the first meeting of a group of people with a vision of the future who decided to form the Pawarenga Community Trust. A lot has happened since and most of it has been good. But is a bit like our traditional walkway that climbs the steep hillside above the Whangape harbour to give us access to the kaimoana of the West Coast beaches; a walkway that we are also repairing and making safe as another useful P.E.P. project for our people. This is the Golden Stair.

We are climbing our own Golden Stairs. With tact, sincerity and straight thinking we can overcome the first big obstacles of misunderstanding and suspicion. Education is widening the way and good communication is making the going easier. Linking hands with other groups like the Maori Committee, the church committee and the Maori Women’s Welfare League to support each other makes us all stronger. There will be difficulties and delays and detours because we are ordinary people with our share of human faults and frailties and we have a long way to go. The important thing is that we have started our journey up those Golden Stairs; we are on the move.

Na tatou tenei mahi hei painga mo matou tamariki.