Tauira benefit from food parcels

Otago Polytechnic tauira and their whānau, spanning from North Dunedin to Milton, benefited from the mahi of our team at Te Punaka Ōwheo late last week.

“We were generously offered the ability to provide food parcels to our tauira, through Kinder Kara, a Whānau Ora Navigator (and an OP alumni) at Te Roopu Tautoko ki Te Tonga. These parcels were provided through Te Kaika via a number of Māori community providers,” explains Rebecca Swindells, Kaiawhina Tauira Māori.

“We often see tauira who come to us at TPO, who are extremely whakama about asking for any sort of financial support. Some never ask. Many of our tauira are still facing the long-lasting effects of the latest lockdown – increased power bills, diminished pantries, loss of income, etc – so it was a humbling experience to be able to reach out to learners and see whether these parcels provided relief to them during this time.

“The parcels were extremely well received by our tauira and were much bigger than we and the tauira had anticipated. One of our tauira likened it to Christmas.”

Woody Woods, Information Technology Lecturer and Kaiawhina Tauira Māori, who was also involved in the project, says 35 parcels were delivered, each comprising fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and basic essentials. 
 
“With the help of some tauira – Ben Houston, Regionald Tukiwaho and Daniel France, as well as Kiri and Stephen Hohaia – we pulled together and delivered the parcels on Friday evening. 

“To see our students so grateful to have those food parcels delivered was very heart-warming.  Some of the parcels went to families that had newly born babies and some were students that were really struggling to make ends meet. 

“I was very grateful for Kinder and our TPO whānau for making this happen,” Woody says.

“He kai kei aku ringa! (There is food at the end of my hands).”