Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated, our Taiwhenua, Hapū Settlement groups, government agencies, health providers, health organisations and our community groups have advocated that we will become the first fully vaccinated iwi, which is no easy task given the levels of hesitancy among many corners of our communities.
However, just as our Tipuna Kahungunu was an innovator and a leader of high intelligence, we expect all of his descendants to be innovative and of high intelligence, and on their own will and in time, will become 'fully vaccinated'.
Our Tipuna withstood mass destruction in the 1830s when confronted with the musket while pulling together and migrating to their maternal homeland of Te Mahia Okurarenga, now known as Kaiuku.
Rather than starve to death under massive siege, they survived on sucking clay and were able to reoccupy our lands from Wairoa to Wairarapa after the musket threat had been neutralised.
The current musket spread in our midst is Covid-19 and our clay sucking rongoa for survival is to become vaccinated so that we don't infect other whānau members or manuhiri/visitors to our marae, our whare and our kainga.