Stories & Pānui
Let connection be our antidote
Our tamariki, our older people, our communities, our schools, our whānau, our whenua, our taiao. These are the things we value. In a world that feels quite hard right now, there is an invitation to soften ourselves and gently hold all that we truly value at the fore.
This year’s Budget Day was a bit of a mixed bag. Iwi, hapū and community food providers are grateful to have some funding continue, especially as we watch so many other seemingly essential services reduced or removed. But the funding that we have been offered is small, a drop in the bucket of our response to poverty and our journey towards a food secure Aotearoa. Yet, even a small pebble can make a ripple that continues to shift a large body of water.
Tangata Moana Pay Equity Project Update
Reflecting on our roots reminds us that this kaupapa is about more than addressing hunger—it’s about transforming the systems that shape our lives. Food security is deeply tied to equity, and for Tangata Moana, that means confronting the realities of pay inequity in the very food system they help sustain.
Pasifika people experience food insecurity at higher rates than any other group in Aotearoa. At the same time, many are employed across the food system—often in low-wage roles. This project seeks to understand and disrupt that imbalance by naming the structures that create it, and imagining new ones that allow all our communities to thrive.
In recent months, our Pou Pasifika, Philippa Holmes, has been carrying this kaupapa with care—connecting with Pacific leaders, workers, and thinkers across Tāmaki Makaurau, and helping shape a grounded and collective path forward.
Why are food banks still relevant?
Today, more people are food insecure than ever previously recorded in Aotearoa. 27% of our children – that is 263,000 tamariki - live in homes where food sometimes run out. Food banks are distributing food parcels at around twice the rate they were before COVID. In our current economic climate, unemployment is yet to peak. How we respond to this persistent need for food reveals what we choose to value, as a society.