Niki Burtenshaw, Team Leader, Community Libraries, is based at Highbury and provided the Club with insight into the Community Urban Food Forest and Maara Kai - vege gardens.
Before joining the Community Libraries, Niki had a background in environmental education as a teacher in the classroom. When the Council wanted gardens removed from Ruha Street, she collaborated with their departments to establish new beds at the Library backing onto Monrad Park. This was a good fit for the Te Pātikitiki Library's vision to be a community education hub - a site for community engagement, experiences, and development embracing bicultural foundations and multicultural aspirations.
The garden's vision and purpose were established in consultation with communities and groups in the area. It aspires to: provide a nurturing space that models Māori food sovereignty through maara kai and food forest.
Principles; encourage Te Reo Māori use in its community facility/library and include Rangitāne and wider iwi Māori values, and; enable the community to learn about, share in their diversity, and build upon the growing concern of kai resilience and security.
The gardens are in various stages of development. Fruit trees have been planted that produce at different times of the year, and groups like Super Grans run workshops teaching people how to use it - even making marmalade! People can take little plots, create art in the area (such as signs for plants), and be involved in many different ways.
The basics of the education programme are in place now. The programme is based on three pou:
- Biodiversity through native planting
- Medicinal herbs or herbs for rongoā (traditional Māori healing)
- Kai in support of the community (such as seed collecting)
Māori food sovereignty ensures food-secure futures for whānau, independent of international and national food systems and in harmony with Te Ao Tūroa (the natural world). It is about whānau having access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food produced locally and free from chemicals, pesticides and genetic modification. The idea is to give people self-determination about what they could do for themselves, for example, Māori food sovereignty - growing Māori potato and puha, which are foods that wouldn't be seen in a supermarket.