"We are very pleased to be able to support your campaign in full."
Trust chairwoman Cath Holland said they were extremely grateful to the marae and her senior executive and the board of Waikato Tainui for funding the Kāwhia Covid Vaccination Campaign.
"This will allow us to bring the vaccination messages out of Kāwhia to the streets of Hamilton and southwards in order to keep abreast of the Covid outbreak as it spreads down country."
Cath says the trust was fortunate to have a team of professionals on hand to bring the posters alive.
"We contracted one of our professional Waikato photographers, Mark Hamilton, to capture the beauty of our poster whānau.
"Mark saw more than their disability through his camera lens. He captured their dignity in the context of their disability and that's rare.
"At times disability overshadows the person, but with targeted lighting Mark was able to give the images a 3D focus that lifted them off the page.
"Then our graphic artist/journo team of two from Duo Tone, Andy Newth and Jo Hair, took Mark's photos and designed high-end-quality posters.
"Their artwork was perfectly tailored for this campaign with subtle Māori tones of red and white print on black that bring the vaccination messages off the page and in your face.
"It gave our poster messengers the mana that comes with experience, an authority that matched their message, 'We're Vaxxed To Protect Whānau, Protect Your Whānau, Get Vaxxed'.
"Now Phantom Billstickers will take the faces of our posters and their messages into the streets and manually stick them onto every vacant pole in our cities and towns throughout Aotearoa before Christmas."
Cath highlights the spirit of this campaign has been overwhelmed with generosity.
"All of our marketing companies have given the campaign huge discounts because they believe in the kaupapa.
"So at a hugely discounted price, Lumo will put our poster messages on to illuminated billboards in Hamilton estimated to achieve a total of 5 million-plus exposures over six weeks. Go Media, a 50 per cent owned Māori business, have embraced our messaging and will give us access to illuminated billboards in eight cities and towns with 1.25 million exposures over four weeks. Finally, Mediaworks will put our posters onto the back of 10 Hamilton buses for eight weeks.
"This is of huge significance for our eight marae in Kāwhia who joined forces to launch this campaign based on our history with previous epidemics," she said.
"The objective was to remind us all that our people have experienced fatal epidemics before, at a time when there wasn't a vaccine for polio and many of our local kids from Kāwhia died from not having the choice to be vaccinated against a virus that eventually killed them. And so it was for the 1918 flu epidemic. This isn't a new phenomenon for Kāwhia moana. What's different here is the unvaxxed have a choice today to get vaccinated and give themselves a layer of protection to help protect their whānau and moko. Our polio kids didn't have that choice, nor did our people who lost their lives from the flu epidemic."
Cath points out polio caused huge disabilities for many like our poster brother-sister duo, John Forbes and Maea Marshall, who have lived with disability all their lives.
"We have been very fortunate to have our cousins front foot this kaupapa as the faces of our poster campaign to tell their debilitating story and engage the unvaxxed to rethink the choices they have in front of them because Covid kills."
Cath says what's significant about Waikato Tainui's Covid funding decision is that it allows the eight marae to reach the majority of our people who live across Aotearoa with a message that we hope resonates with the unvaxxed, nationwide.
"This isn't just about Kāwhia moana, this is about a nation, the team of 5 million.
"When the chips are down, we pull together. This 'mate', this life-threatening virus, it doesn't care what tribe you come from or what marae you affiliate to. If you're not vaxxed it's going to nail those who have no level of protection from the virus. This is hugely significant for our people because we've already experienced this with polio. The other issue is, most of our people live away from Kāwhia but nonetheless vulnerable. Now, we have the opportunity for our messages to reach them as well as the nation."
Cath says in times of crisis such as this, we fall back on what we know.
"A traditional alliance has been forged again to illustrate leadership for those of our people who are most vulnerable.
"Our eight marae led our vaccination strategy around the Kāwhia harbour, our marae food bank was set up after Covid hit Aotearoa to ensure none of our people went without kai during this pandemic and our eight marae endorsed our poster campaign to engage the unvaxxed to go get the jab."
Cath says the campaign will reach thousands of Kiwis at what is normally the busiest time of the year, albeit under the Government's traffic light system.
"The timing, the gestures of aroha and the support of Waikato Tainui has been so befitting of the Christmas sentiment," she said.
"Our Christmas wish is that this all translates into people getting vaxxed to save lives, getting vaxxed to protect whānau and getting vaxxed to stay healthy.
"It is our way of wishing you all a very Merry Christmas from everyone from Ngā Marae o Kāwhia Moana."
