Leading Māori social impact organistion Tapuwae Roa today launched a series of regional wānanga to support rakahinonga Māori (entrepreneurs) in bringing their business ideas to life.
Facilitated by experienced business mentor Saara Tawha (Ramaroa Ltd), the interactive one-day wānanga hopes to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit of participants while providing key tools and skills to progress their business ideas to reality.
“The Rakahinonga Roadshow has been created to activate momentum, by helping whānau explore their ideas,” says Tawha, who brings more than four years’ experience working with Māori startups to the initiative through Kōkiri Māori Business Accelerator.
“It gets these ideas out of the heads of rakahinonga, puts them through their paces, and then challenges them to assess if their ideas warrant the work required to explore further.”
Structured to provide a kickstart in progressing rakahinonga aspirations, the workshop also provides participants with a foundation in business basics and introduces helpful tools, frameworks, and services available to support participants along their entrepreneurial journey.
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“We will use ideation tools alongside the pūkenga of our facilitators, to help whānau explore their business ideas further and provide them with skills so that they can better articulate their ideas and bring the right people on the journey with them.”
Through the initiative, Tapuwae Roa hopes to remove some of the barriers Māori experience when entering the entrepreneurial ecosystem and increase economic resilience within whānau Māori.
“We believe that by supporting aspiring pakihi and rakahinonga Māori to explore and accelerate their business potential, whānau can find pathways towards their own financial resilience and self-determination,” says Te Pūoho Kātene, kaihautū (executive director) of Tapuwae Roa.
The roadshow will launch with four wānanga during November, with the first taking place in Whāngarei on November 4. A second series of roadshows is also planned for February, and will include an online wānanga for those who cannot make it in person.
“Entrepreneurship is a tool to create freedom, solve the problems you care about, and create value on your own terms. In effect, entrepreneurship is the embodiment of tino rangatiratanga,” says Tawha.
Wānanga dates and locations:
- Whāngarei, November 4
- Auckland, November 11
- Hamilton, November 18
- Dunedin, November 25
