Families and communities can only be healthy and thriving when the air, water, soil and life around us is also healthy and thriving. The Taiao Team at ME Family Services works to regenerate our local ecosystems and to nurture positive, reciprocal relationships between people and place in Māngere/Ōtāhuhu, recognising and valuing the unique potential that is in all.
We provide; Waste education and support to reduce and regenerate waste, a Recovery Room and Resource Recovery Network, our Te Puna Oranga community garden and makerspace, the Māngere Ngahere Project, local stream education and community engagement around the Harania Stream, Pest-Free Māngere/Ōtāhuhu to support for our community to create balance in our biodiversity, and opportunities for the Māngere Taiao Network to connect and collaborate in our area.
We provide education and support for residents, groups, organisations and businesses in Māngere/Ōtāhuhu who would like to reduce their waste. Please contact us to book an interactive workshop or consultation session tailored to your needs. We are able to run presentations, conduct waste audits, deliver recommendations and work with you to achieve some new waste reduction goals, assist with reducing waste and running zero waste events, and support local waste champions that are doing mahi in this space.
Contact our Waste Regeneration Facilitator:
Destiny Harris
destiny@mefsc.org.nz
022 102 8195
Te Puna Oranga is the name given to our community garden and makerspace. It reflects the wairua of the space and its role in bringing to life the hopes and aspirations ME Family Services has for our community: a thriving, regenerative community where everyone and everything has value.
Once part of a wetland area, we saw that the space had a role to play in capturing the “waste” from our neighbourhood and finding the value in it, turning it into something precious. The entire site is constructed from local neighbourhood “waste”- tyres for garden beds, a shipping container for our makerspace, pallets for our garden shed, old bed heads for plant supports. The garden is maintained and developed by our Regenerative Practitioner Vern Togiatau, alongside many fabulous local time-traders.
Te Puna Oranga offers the kind of space every community is in need of- somewhere people can go to feel valued, make a contribution, share knowledge about growing food and eating well, and rethink how we create and deal with “rubbish”.
It can provide a doorway in to other services offered by ME Family Services; our social work team, Early Childhood Centre, Recovery Room and local environmental projects. And most importantly it can connect people to their local community.
Te Puna Oranga is open Monday to Friday, 9 am -1 pm if you’d like to drop in and visit us. Or you can contact us to make a time
Please contact our Te Puna Oranga Coordinator:
Contact:
raquel@mefsc.org.nz
027 251 7510
We have some amazing educational resources in our backyard! Our Stream Educator is available to run sessions with children and young people in the Māngere area, introducing them to the Te Ara-rata and Harania Streams, and how we can help to care for these beautiful parts of our community. Sessions can be tailored for all ages and different learning needs.
Please contact our Stream Regeneration Facilitator:
Vijay Rajan
vijay@mefsc.org.nz
027 444 7041
Pest-Free Māngere/Ōtāhuhu supports our local community to create a healthy ecosystem, by removing pest plants and animals from our neighbourhoods. Our Taiao Regeneration Facilitator Nelly Hikaiti provides education, support and resources to help you tackle rats, mice, moth plant, woolly nightshade and other species that are impacting on our native plants and animals, and our own wellbeing. Please get in touch with Nelly to start in your backyard, or to help out in your neighbourhood.
Please contact our Pest-Free Regeneration Facilitator :
Nelly Hikaiti
027 328 8378
The Māngere Taiao Network is a collection of organisations who are all working to regenerate the Taiao in Māngere through our various mahi. We provide opportunities for this group to connect and collaborate and to build a shared vision for the Taiao in Māngere through all of our projects.
Please contact our Taiao Team Manager:
Colleen Smith
Meet some of our Taiao Team below. Don’t hesitate to contact us
Taiao Manager
Ko Takaka te whenua tupu
No Golden Bay ahau
Kei Tāmaki Makaurau ahau e noho ana
Ka ora te whenua, ka ora te tāngata
If the land is well, we are well
Colleen’s mahi is grounded in social and environmental justice. Colleen brings an excitement to the role where she will lead the Taiao Team in collaboration with mana whenua and community organisations to reconnect with, and take positive action for te taiao in South Auckland.
She believes that the wellbeing of our natural environment reflects the wellbeing of our community and vice versa. Colleen’s motivation to do this mahi is for the benefit of our grandchildren’s children.
Ngahere Regeneration Facilitator
Pest-Free Regeneration Facilitator
Te Puna Oranga - Regeneration Practitioner
Stream Regeneration Facilitator
Waste Regeneration Facilitator
Creating a brighter future for our children
Manaaki Tangata Team Encouraging families to achieve fulfilling lives
Taiao Team
Regenerating our place
Coming in 2024
