Jodi Hawe.

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa

Ko wakaringaringa te waka ika, ko Makawe Roa te tangata

Ko Aotea te waka, ko Turi te tangata

Ko Pukehaupapa te maunga

Ko Kapuni me Inaha nga awa

Ko Te Aroha te marae

Ko Ngati Manuhiakai te hapu

Ko Nga Ruahinerangi te iwi

My name is Jodi Hawe and I was born and raised in Palmerston North and am the 9th born child from a whanau of 10 kids. If you were to ask my siblings, they would tell you that I ruined Christmas day 1973 but my dad has always said I was the best present ever and a gift that keeps giving.

I moved to Kawerau in the late 1990’s with my husband and two tamariki and today in 2023 I live between Kawerau and Dunedin and have added a son, 5 mokopuna and two whangai gift babies to our whanau. My oldest in my whanau which is my son is 33 years old and the youngest is a very new 8 days young little taonga girl.

My passions in life are my whanau and ensuring we keep connected to our whanau, turangawaewae, marae and hapu. During the last 5 years I have sat as the Chairperson for Te Aroha Marae and led my team of trustees through the successful redevelopment of our marae by successfully securing funding to make this happen. I worked with whanau, hapu and iwi to create the blueprints of the design and was lead liaison with the project manager and building team. This epic journey taught me that everyone must be heard and every voice matters. It is something I carry with me today. Every point is valid.

I am currently working at Te Pukenga – Otago Polytechnic as lecturer for the Certificate of Bicultural Competencies and I absolutely love it. I have a program which I am constantly evaluating, redeveloping and changing to still fit within the parameters but to best fit the learners. I teach the very basics of Matauranga Maori and I must say I am very proud of what I do and what I accomplish. I get to share my lived, learned knowledge given to me from my father who received this knowledge from his father and so forth. I see cultural bias’s change daily in people and this gives me hope for a better future where co-governance isn’t a scary beast but one of us all playing together nicely and everything being fair and equitable across the board. When we understand each other, we gain an insight and clarity into each other’s worlds, which leads to our world only getting better. Then I will know we are leaving an awesome legacy for our future generations. ‘He whanau kotahi tatau”.