Two years' research into the history of the Te Arawa Women's Health League will culminate with a book and exhibition launch on Friday.
"Autauhinera: Sisterhood – Legacies of the Te Arawa Women's Health League" will open at a ceremony in the Rotorua Lakes Council Galleria - 80 years after the launch of this grassroots organisation.
The Te Arawa Women's Health League was founded by district nurse Robina Cameron with the support of Te Arawa elders in the Rotorua district in 1937. The league's focus was the health of Maori women and children working through marae-based women's committees.
The need for such an organisation was revealed in the words of current league president Hariata Pikea.
"Our people and babies were dying, the sanitation was poor, our homes had no water or sewerage, our babies - the mortality rate was so high. I can feel their tears today. Hope arrived in the early 1930s, when Kamerana, the little Pakeha nurse, visited us in her Model T Ford and hoihoi (horse)."