Anzac Park, Tairāwhiti/Gisborne is the home base of Mareikura Waka Ama Club. The Club is proposing to build a storage facility at the Park to house their waka, which have lain outside exposed to the elements for more than 20 years. This is proving costly for the club in terms of deteriorating assets and also exposes the expensive waka to vandalism.
The storage facility is the first stage of a much greater vision, which is to establish the Hawaikinui Centre at the Park to support the resurgence of traditional Polynesian navigational methodologies through teaching traditional sailing skills and techniques for outrigger sailing, waka surfing, surf lifesaving and other inclusive water sports. The Hawaikinui Centre will be a multi-purpose space which can accommodate hui and learning and be a hub for the local community, which finds itself challenged in many areas of demographics and health statistics.
This project is focused on whānau transformation through traditional voyaging matauranga. People of all ages engage in the sport of waka ama, paddling together as family and community. The project aspires to the collective success of waka ama whānau and community. It will encourage cultural identity through heritage and tradition, social wellbeing through participation and recreation and potentially environmental and economic benefits will also be realised in the long term.
Mareikura Waka Ama contracted Giblin Group to develop a Feasibility Study on the project which will support funding applications. The Feasibility Study included a high-level funding strategy for obtaining the funds required to build the storage facility, which is literally the foundation for the greater project vision of the Hawaikinui Centre.
Stakeholder engagement as part of the study revealed significant support for the project, an eagerness to reconnect with the waterways of Tairāwhiti through the development of sailing skills, reconnect with culture and heritage through the telling of navigational stories and re-establishing the sustainable practices practiced in the past.