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Ports in the storm: How marae stepped up in the face of disaster

By Rebecca Macfie
New Zealand Listener·
10 mins to read

Amid the destruction wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle, marae stand as places of refuge, support and aroha. By Rebecca Macfie.

On the Sunday before Gabrielle unleashed her violence across Hawke’s Bay, whānau gathered at Waipatu Marae on Hastings’ eastern edge, to raise money for those in Tairāwhiti still reeling from Cyclone Hale a month earlier.

They called it a “slash fund­raiser”. They wanted to manaaki those whose struggle with log-strewn farms and beaches, smashed riverbeds and barely passable roads had been

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