Ngāti Kahungunu's new GM a home girl at heart

Ngāti Kahungunu's new general manager Chrissie Hape

Ngāti Kahungunu's new general manager Chrissie Hape has her roots firmly set in Hawke's Bay, being born and bred in Hastings.

With whakapapa connections to Kahuranaki and Hourangarea Marae she is the second youngest of eight children.

"I always wanted to remain in Heretaunga in particular," she says.

"My mum always said that her umbilical cord was stretched so far that when it came to me, it just couldn't stretch any more."

"But I wasn't really prepared to go anywhere else. I thought I could achieve what I wanted to do within Heretaunga so I've never gone to Wellington, never gone to Auckland. I've always stayed here."

She grew up on Oliphant Rd in Raureka where she took on the role of looking after her Mum and Dad and began working at 17-years-old.

"The whānau that I come from is not rich, they're salt of the earth," says Chrissie.

"My Dad was a labourer, he was a shearer, he was a Watties worker, the same as my mother."

"I think that people need to remember where they come from so they can actually engage and build a relationship with our whānau and advocate in the true sense."

She has taken on the new role with the iwi after former CE Dr Adele Whyte resigned to start her own business.

Her role helps to fill a transitional period within the iwi over the next 12 months and says her excitement was also met with some trepidation.

"Because it is an awful lot of work. Working for your people, they can be your best champions and then your worst critics."

"I think for me I've always been a home girl always wanted to work for and with my people to achieve the outcomes that we need to achieve."

Before taking up the general manager position, Chrissie had worked with the iwi for two years previous as a secondee from the Ministry of Social Development for Oranga Tamariki.

Her work was around building resilience of Kahungunu whānau and the repatriation of mokopuna (grandchildren) in state care.

In 2014, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed with Child Youth and Family, the fourth agreement of its kind at the time to be signed between iwi and CYF around child protection.

"They're still keen to support the role that I do and support the partnership with the iwi moving forward so that is great news that we're having that relationship continue with those two ministries."

In her decision to take on the role, she says there were certain skill sets she could use to give value to the workplace and Kahungunu whānau in terms of improvement.

"We all know the statistics, we know how over-represented our whānau are, and all those bad statistics, but they also hold the most potential to make a difference for themselves."

"What we need to do is create a landscape that enables them to be able to do that. At the moment, a lot of our whānau feel disempowered and we're wanting to have our
discussions directly with ministers and ministries to say 'hey' we need to change the way in which we work together so we can create a better environment, so our whānau can thrive."