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Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Weaver mourns death of Puketapu-Hetet

Maori weavers are mourning the death of Erenora Puketapu Hetet, who played a major role in the survival and regeneration of traditional weaving.

Mrs Puketapu-Hetet died on Saturday aged 65.

Rotorua weaver Edna Pahewa says the Te Atiawa woman inspired and helped many younger craftspeople through her work, her teaching, including a stint at the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua, and through her writing.

"Her book she wrote, Maori Weaving, it helped so many of the learners over the past decade, they would use it for research, and many of the schools and institutions still use it as one of the very few resources, book-wise, of learnign the skills of Maori weaving," Pahewa said.

Erenora Puketapu-Hetet is lying at her home marae, Waiwhetu in lower Hutt.

HEALTH RESOURCE STRUGGLE CONSTANT

The head of a south Auckland Maori health provider says constant pressure is needed to keep up the flow of contracts required to stay viable.

Turuki Healthcare has just won a contract to run the Family Start programme in Mangere.

Its other programmes include a breastfeeding promotion which it was forced to fund itself, after the district health board refused to continue funding it.

Chief executive Syd Jackson says Maori providers need to work constantly with the health bureacracies and at the political level.

"But you have to just hang in there and kick and scratch and leap up and down and do what you can to make them understand the case you want them to consider and act upon," Jackson said.

GUDGEON CALLS FOR END TO AGENT ORANGE ROW

Veteran and former MP Bill Gudgeon says it's time to do the right thing by Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

Mr Gudgeon was on the select committee that ended years of official denial and confirmed the defoliant was sprayed onto New Zealand soldiers during the war.

The Government is considering a report reconmmending it apologise and pay compensation to veterans, and a Massey University study to be released this week is expected to show the poison might have damaged veterans' DNA.

Mr Gudgeon says that report makes the need for settlement even more urgent.

"We've been dragging the chain here too long and it's about time this piositin is sorted out and the goverment comes to the fore and say this is what we are going to do for you. Even thugh a lot of men have passed on now, they should take care of their families, their children who are suffering from Agent Orange," Gudgeon said.

NGAWHA ROW NOT OVER

A kaumatua from Northland's Ngati Rangi says the Corrections Department needs to hold off signing a contract with the hapu for services at Ngawha Prison.

The department said yesterday that a weekend hui had sorted out differences within the tribe, and it will go ahead and sign the $250 thousand contract with the Ngati Rangi Development Society.

But Andy Sarich says nothing was resolved at the hui.

Mr Sarich says the hapu needs more time to sort itself out.

"If they signed it prematurely, the friction will still be there. We will not be any further ahead," Sarich said.

ABUSE CHALLENGE FOR MAORI MEN

The former head of the Christchurch Women's Prison has challenged Maori men to change their behaviour.

Celia Lashlie says in some families violence is so ingrained through generations that their young people don't know how to resolve conflicts without resorting to physical violence.

She says Maori men need to say domestic violence will no longer be tolerated within their communities.

"I want Maori men to look at other men and say good men don't hit their women, good men don't beat their children, good men don't get pissed and do things to their children, and I want Maori men to challenge other Maori men about their behaviour," Lashlie said.

TARANAKI TRUST CRACKS HARD NUT REHAB

Manwhile, a Taranaki-based rehabilitation programme is successfully using tikanga Maori to stop violent prisoners from reoffending.

Te Ihi Tu Trust met the Parole Board yesterday to discuss its apporach and whether more prisoners should be referred to the 12-week programme.

Trustee Haami Piripi says the trust has put more than 100 men through its secure residential centre at the former New Plymouth hospital, and reports a 73 percent success rate.

The programme uses a range of techniques, including meditation, and tackles isseus like substance abuse, literacy and underflying family problems.

Mr Piripi, a one time responsible Maori strategy manager for the Department of Corrections, says it works because it empowers Maori men through their culture so they can make changes in their lives.

"We might say they're crims, they're all this an all that but they really are the cutting edge of our communities, and they can cut deep or they can cut light. These days, it's so easy to do nothing, so when you do something it means you're motivated. So these guys who have been caught for crime, hyiu usueally find they are fairly motivated," Piripi said.

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