Trails of Taonga.
- Oranga Tamariki | Ministry for Children -“This was not just a design collaboration, it was a community-wide collaboration.
He tamaiti tu, he tamaiti ora. A child held high, is a child who will flourish.”
Carving trails of kindness across Aotearoa
The new Ministry for Children, Oranga Tamariki was formed in 2017, to ensure the welfare of NZ’s most at-risk tamariki. Importantly, Oranga Tamariki realised that the State alone cannot provide the aroha that children need. Only people can do that.
We were tasked to get everyday people in the community to help these tamariki in any way they can, big or small. When interviewing care-experienced tamariki and rangatahi, they told us amazing stories about people who’d helped them and made a difference in their lives. People they’d never forgotten.
Our strategy was simple: share their stories and inspire others from the community to step forward and help a child in need.
We created five ‘taonga’ or precious carvings as a way of honouring those who helped them. Although beautiful, the real value of taonga lies in their meaning, and the stories they carry with them. We wondered if it would be possible to create new taonga that could be imbued with the stories of the care-experienced children we’d spoken to. These taonga would become powerful tactile and visual symbols. Objects that convey the deep gratitude these children feel towards those who helped them – thanking them for their kindness. For noticing.
The taonga travel the country – staying for a while with those who’d helped a child in need – before being passed on to the next person, and the next, leaving trails of wellbeing wherever they go.
