No slowing for Te Rarawa

Te Rarawa's offices in Kaitaia are closed, but the iwi's work continues. Picture / Peter Jackson

Te Rarawa's offices in Kaitaia have closed, but there is no shortage of work, perhaps more than ever, to keep social services general manager George Riley and his staff busy.

The organisation had been granted essential status for its community roles, Mr Riley said, especially youth justice, the prevention of family harm, support of families and the Early Start programme.

The Ministry of Social Development, Oranga Tamariki and the Ministry of Health had given the iwi "carte blanche" to reallocate and repurpose funding to support the Crown's strategy to prevent the transmission of Covid-19.

"Everyone is still coming to grips with what this is going to look like," Mr Riley said.

But the immediate priority on Friday was to ensure the safety of the approximately 50 employees who were available for deployment.

The problem last week was a lack of personal protection equipment, which was needed to allow face to face contact.

"We can't allow that to threaten the wellbeing of our staff," he said.

He hoped that that issue would be resolved by today.

Te Rarawa was the only iwi in Muriwhenua with a sufficient workforce to cope with demand, but it was continuing to work with other iwi and a number of NGOs.

Zoom meetings were also taking place daily, with strong support from the Crown, the Far North District Council, the Civil Defence Emergency Management Group, the police and others.

Mr Riley said the contribution made by Far North police area commander Inspector Riki Whiu had been particularly outstanding, while the Crown was still working through a lot of detail, and was making a strong effort to complete that.

Two weeks ago the emergency had been all about water, and that was still a serious issue, now with the added need for strict personal hygiene.

There was strong demand around Muriwhenua for hygiene packs and mental health services, and the usual winter flu season was "just around the corner".

"We're working with health providers as another line of support," Mr Riley said. This week the focus would also go on to providing food relief for families."

He also recommended that people take the www.covid-19.govt.nz website as the single source of information.

"Check on friends, family, the elderly, people who have no support networks," he said. "People are helping each other, and we have to continue doing that. We can minimise the impact of this if we all play our part."