Walking Together: Nurturing Co-Creation and Cultural Sustainability

A few months ago, we embarked on an inspiring initiative, extending a warm welcome to eight Māori and Pasifika wāhine , inviting them to join a transformative 10-month journey of co-creation in partnership with Walk Together. This initiative has a dual purpose – first, to delve into the intricacies of Walk Together methodologies and practices, and second, to cultivate ahikā or home-embers, to welcome in new people and communities into the Walk Together whānau over the next few years.

Co-Creating Ahikā

Embedded in Te Ao Māori, this aspect of our kaupapa embraces the essence of ahikā, emphasising the vital connection to one's roots and cultural identity for well-being and sustainability. Our group of wāhine as part of this journey, have been invited to co-create the inaugural ahikā, the home-embers that will illuminate the path for Walk Together Aotearoa into the future.

The Intercultural Facilitator & Systemic Change through Walk Together

Our second pathway is to share in a reciprocal Learning by Doing over 10 months, as the group comes to understand the function and roles of Walk Together within systemic change.

Enhancing Intercultural Leadership

Our wāhine were invited because of thier service to community, acknowledging that they are already involved in, or facilitating change in thier own right. This kaupapa aims to enhance and compliment practices that might be already occurring.

Embracing a Walk Together Kaitiaki Role:

We have encouraged our collective to embrace the role of Kaitiaki for Walk Together. This involves safeguarding the cultural significance of Ahikā, ensuring that the embers of our shared journey continue to burn brightly and serve as a beacon for future endeavours.

This initiative has been offered as the opportunity to be part of a shared vision, contributing to the sustainability and growth of Walk Together Aotearoa.

We meet weekly via Zoom. As we continue walking together down these dual pathways of learning and co-creation, we'll share regular updates on how our journey is going.

Look out for the introductory to our System Navigators blog coming to you in the near future.

This initiative is sponsored by the J R McKenzie Trust and is in mutual aspirations to:

• increase the number skilled Māori and Pasifika intercultural facilitators
• increase the number of intercultural facilitators available to deal with systemic change that is carried out collaboratively and in culturally responsive ways.
• evolve Walk Together from it's current state, to a future state where we there is a thriving Walk Together community of supporters, practitioners, and people engaged in professional learning focused on systemic change.

We are grateful to the J R Mckenzie Trust for their tautoko of this kaupapa. E ngaa kaitautoko I tautokohia mai raa, Teenaa koutou.