Ōhaeawai Pā

Duration: 3:06

[White text on black background: The Ōhaeawai Community Cultural Centre received a $1.7 million grant from Kānoa – Regional Economic Development and Investment Unit's Provincial Growth Fund to restore the site of the 1845 Battle of Ōhaeawai, including St Michael’s Anglican Church and Ōhaeawai Native School.]

Ambient music plays.

[Drone footage over a church and urupā]

[Text: Te Pakanga o Ōhaeawai – realising a dream]

[Mid-shot of Alistair Clarke, a Māori man]

Alistair: This is Ōhaeawai, the original Ōhaeawai. Ōhaeawai now is seven kilometres down the road, at the junction of state highway 12 and state highway 1. But Ōhaeawai is here.

[Drone shot of an old school in the middle of the countryside.]

Raima: So I came to this school as a student in 1960.

[Mid-shot of Raima Redden, a Māori woman]

Raima: And my whānau home is just one paddock away. All of this whenua come from my great grandfather, who was Heta Te Haara. And he was a rangatira for our hapū. For me it's, about realising my parents, and my grandparents and my great grandparents' dreams.

[Raima’s interview is overlapped with various shots of the Ōhaeawai countryside, including the old school, church and urupā]

Raima: You know, Mum used to always say to us, "gosh, I wish we could do our church up" and you know, and "oh, and our poor old school", and Mum used to look up there at the farm because that farm belonged to you know, her grandfather. She says, "Jeez, I wish I wish I had a tractor," you know, don't ask me what she was going to do with the tractor. But you know, this was her dream for everything to be done. You know, and it wasn't done then because they never had access to funding, like there is nowadays. So you know, to be given that opportunity to do up the whole three sites is massive.

[Mid-shot of Alistair Clarke]

Alistair: What's happening, I think, has always been aspirational. Hard to be aspirational, though, when you know that you're trying to do it off the smell of an oily rag.

[Shots of Alistair, Raima and Chanel entering the renovated school building and looking around at the interiors]

Alistair: The funding side of it has been huge, because we have been able to realise, you know, some of those dreams of what it could be.

[Mid-shot of Raima]

Raima: Hand on my heart, I don't think in my lifetime, this would have got done without the contribution from the government, we wouldn't have got it done. We would have been selling raffles from here to Africa.

[More footage of people examining the renovated school building]

Alistair: This is the start you know, we don't see it as the end that's for sure.

[Mid-shot of Alistair]

Alistair: You know, we want to keep growing it, keep evolving it. And if eventually, there's an opportunity for it to provide paid work for whānau, all the better.

[Drone footage overlooking the Ōhaeawai countryside. Logos appear: Kānoa Regional Economic Development and Investment Unit, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, and New Zealand Government]

Alistair: But I think the intention more was for us to tell our story.

Music ends.

[Fade to black]

Duration: 2:53

White text on black background: The Ōhaeawai Community Cultural Centre received a $1.7m grant from Kānoa – Regional Economic Development & Investment Unit to restore the site of the 1845 Battle of Ōhaeawai, including St Michael’s Anglican Church and Ōhaeawai Native School.

Ambient music plays.

[Drone footage over the Ōhaeawai countryside.]

[Text: Te Pakanga o Ōhaeawai –  coming home]

Chanel: I'm from here, but I've never lived here, which is the case for many of us.

[Mid-shot of Chanel Clarke, a Māori woman]

Chanel: Our parents were the generation that migrated to the cities for work, you know, and the opportunities that they saw there.

[Various footage of the Ōhaeawai countryside]

Chanel: I worked in Auckland as a curator at the Auckland Museum for 20 years, but I'd kind of reached a point in my career where, you know, kind of had enough, I'd had enough of city life, and I really did want to come home and contribute.

[Mid-shot of Chanel]

Chanel: And so I was fortunate to be able to be offered a role looking after the newly built Te Rau Aroha Museum, which was also funded from the Provincial Growth Fund.

[Footage of Chanel observing the newly renovated school building with Alistair and Raima.]

Chanel: That job enables me to contribute to this place. So I can come, I can live, I can be supported, I can support my family. But it also means I can bring my skills and experience to this place, and just be here.

[Mid-shot of Chanel]

Chanel: It's different when you're embedded in the landscape, which I think is what this place offers.

[Footage of the renovated school and the church]

Chanel: There's buildings that we've been able to refurbish and renovate. And that was something that, particularly with the church, that really resonated with me, is that my grandmother always said before she died, she wanted the roof of the church to be fixed.

[Mid-shot of Chanel]

Chanel: And so I was like, What can I do?

[Panning shot of a white church with a red roof.]

Chanel: You know, I knew it was a historic place, and was there anything I could do to help, you know, accelerate that so she could see the church in all its glory again.

[Mid-shot of Chanel]

Chanel: So it's, everyone in their time, contributes and plays a role. And so for me, I just see the time that we're here as just picking up that thread of ones before us.

[More drone footage of the Ōhaeawai countryside]

Chanel: And then ones after us will pick the thread up again and carry it through.

[Mid-shot of Chanel, with footage of Chanel looking through the new school building]

Chanel. But what I want to say through my story, is that it's enabled me to come home, it's provided me with employment, and it's meant that I can bring my skills home, back into this community, not only in my day job, but in my night job here at home.

[Drone footage overlooking the Ōhaeawai countryside. Logos appear: Kānoa Regional Economic Development & Investment Unit, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, and New Zealand Government]

Music ends.

[Fade to black]

Duration: 2:40

[White text on black background: The Ōhaeawai Community Cultural Centre received a $1.7m grant from Kānoa – Regional Economic Development & Investment Unit to restore the site of the 1845 Battle of Ōhaeawai, including St Michael’s Anglican Church and Ōhaeawai Native School.]

Ambient music plays.

[Drone footage over the Ōhaeawai countryside.]

[Text: Te Pakanga o Ōhaeawai –  a point in time]

[Mid-shot of Chanel Clarke, a Māori woman]

Chanel: My hope for this place is that we can recover what's been lost for a lot of our whānau and for our whānau first and foremost.

[Drone footage of the church and urupā at Ōhaeawai]

[Mid-shot of Raima Redden, a Māori woman]

Raima:  If I can teach my children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren, about this place, I think they'll get a lot out- you know- instead of like me learning about the Battle of Ōhaeawai, like in the last five years. For me, that's a must. I have to teach, you know, my children and grandchildren, those stories.

[Panning shot countryside, featuring the old school at Ōhaeawai]

Chanel: So while I absolutely acknowledge that this place has an important role to play moving forward, for a retelling of those stories and surfacing some of those narratives.

[Mid-shot of Chanel]

Chanel: What people don't realise is that we were never privy to those narratives either. So we would like to learn them as well.

[Drone footage of the site of the battle of Ōhaeawai, a church and an urupā.]

[Mid-shot of Alistair Clarke, a Māori man]

Alistair: Yes, as I said, you know there's this battle, that kind of sits there as a point in time- but it is literally a point in time. And I think, yep, acknowledge it. But also, what else can we be known for?

[Panning shots of the white church with the white roof]

Alistair: I always say, I like to say, it that not so much once were warriors, but once were gardeners. For a very, very long time, these were the gardens of the north.

[Various shots of Alistair, Raima and Chanel observing the interior of the renovated school building]

Raima: We do keep things to ourselves, Ngāti Rangi, we don't go out and tell the world who we are.

[Mid-shot of Raima]

Raima: We're quite reserved, I think. And I think that the time has come that we have to share this history with everybody else.

[Panning shot of the church]

Raima: Not just keep it you know, it's a really nice piece of history, I think. I think it needs to be shared.

[Drone footage overlooking the Ōhaeawai countryside. Logos appear: Kānoa Regional Economic Development & Investment Unit, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, and New Zealand Government]

Music ends.

[Fade to black]