Koha web programme aims to marry traditional concept and today’s tech

Te Awanui Reeder (left0 and Ngahu Potaka have developed a te reo Māori-based platform designed to support whānau to give, receive and manage koha.

A new web-based platform is harnessing today’s technology to smooth the path for koha, without losing its meaningfulness.

The idea for the programme, simply called Koha, came from Ngahu Potaka, who put out a call for others to help – a call answered by Te Awanui Reeder.

Both men whakapapa to Ngāti Whakaue, and came “home” to Whakaue Marae in Maketū to launch the programme recently.

At the launch, Ngahu said the seeds of his idea took root during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Koha is a tradition brought with our ancestors from Hawaiki to Aotearoa and it’s something that has lasted through time and we still practise this tradition today.”

Watching the koha being put on the ground in envelopes at a tangihanga got him thinking, he said.

“Watching the koha go down on the ground, I was watching all the koha coming in and I was thinking ‘By crikey, how do they know whose koha is which going into that envelope?’

“And then it was going down on the ground and I was watching the poor koro. There were envelopes galore on the ground the wind was blowing and the envelopes were starting to move around and the poor koro was trying to pick them up. I was sitting there and I was thinking, ‘There must be an easier way to do this for the whānau’.

“That’s where whakaaro [idea] sat until I got home and was watching TV .”

It was at the time that Auckland was still in lockdown, but the rest of the country wasn’t.

“There was a programme about our Māori whānau up there, how they couldn’t get back to their tangihanga, how they couldn’t get back to their marae – and how they couldn’t connect with their whānau gatherings, their birthdays, their weddings.

“That sort of hit quite close to home and I thought, ‘What if we built something that could reconnect them’.

He also has whānau in Australia and saw the value in finding a way to help them connect with their whānau.

“So that’s where it started.”

He took to X (formerly Twitter) asking if anyone in his circle would know how to progress the idea.

That was when Te Awanui got involved.

“I’ll always be grateful to Awa for reaching out,” says Ngahu. “We had a talk and I explained what I wanted to do and he jumped on it.”

At the time Te Awanui was studying UX Design.

“That’s about making sure digital apps serve our journey and achieve the things we want them to do so, it was quite timely for that.”

He also recalled times when aid could have been useful – at his mother’s tangihanga, for example, and the difficulty of not knowing who everyone was and keeping track of who had given what.

Te Awanui Reeder (left) and Ngahu Potaka presenting the program at Whakaue Marae in Maketū.

He realised there were other situations, such as fundraising for or donating to kohanga reo or kura kaupapa, or more general fundraising, where there could be uses for easy-to-use software.

“One of the things we talked about right from the start was, if we are going to do this, it had to be true to tikanga,” says Ngahu.

“Our app’s not there to replace the envelope that does down – that’s always going to do down, that’s always going to be our tohu aroha [token of love].”

The point of difference, he says, is that it is based on whakaaro Māori.

Part of that is the use of te reo Māori. The programme can be set to be fully te reo Māori or te reo Māori with English translations.

Each koha is accompanied by its own mihi (tribute/acknowledgment) – with templates available or the option of creating a personal mihi.

“Being a te reo teacher, I wanted to make te reo accessible to our whānau but also for the ones unable to speak te reo Māori to be able to use it.

“We also wanted to also cater for our Pākehā whānau – a lot of our mates are Pākehā and they love giving koha and they use our reo as well.”

It is possible through the program to give a mihi by video.

Givers can easily make a koha, can combine koha and the receiver will know where it has come from.

“We wanted that ability for the app, too, so when the koha comes in, it’s all listed for you, you can share it with your whānau and they know their obligations because koha is about fulfilling your obligations to your whakapapa and strengthening those ties between families.”

There are, of course, other apps and programs available for making donations.

“There are some big players, but we don’t see them as competition. It’s really about helping the kaupapa.

“We feel we have a superior product. It’s culturally intelligent and easy to use. When you want to give to a kaupapa, you don’t have to create an account with us – you just give and go – and we think that’s really cool for our whanau.

“We don’t want it to be hōhā [a bother], that’s the whole aim of this – take the hōhā out of koha.”

Although its appearance is like an app, Koha is currently website-based and can be found at koha.kiwi. Future plans include the development of an app.