Gloria Gardiner is living her dream. In September last year she moved back to her papakāinga on Rangiwaea Island; a 5 minute boat ride off the coast of Tauranga.

It’s an idyllic lifestyle for the Mum of two whose whānau are shareholders of the Tauwhao Te Ngare Trust which owns the majority of the island.

“It’s peaceful, you can save money ‘cause there’s no shops, and it has everything a family could want. It’s hard to put into words how good this is for my whānau.”

Gloria has lived on the island before, as a teenager with her grandmother, Mawete Gardiner. It was this sense of connection with her whenua, and wanting her children to learn about their own whenua, before anything else, that made her reach for the opportunity to be the first tenant in the family home that forms part of the Trust’s papakāinga development, opened in September last year.

“Good housing helps whānau succeed in so many other parts of their lives,” says Te Puni Kōkiri Special Housing Action Zone senior adviser Pauline Tangohau.

“Our programme provides a small investment to help Māori at the flax roots make the most of housing opportunities available,” she says.

For Tauwhao Te Ngare Trust, Te Puni Kōkiri provided capacity and capability support to get the project off the ground. It helped establish governance over and co-ordination of construction works.

The support included house designs and infrastructure civil design works.

But Tauwhao Te Ngare Trust Papakāinga Co-ordinator Coralie Gardiner explains the development stemmed from a vision original Trustees had when the Trust was set up in 1982. There’s been subsequent technical advice and support from Te Pio Kawe of Boffa Miskell.

“The Trust was set up so the land could be developed and work better for the people,” she says. From humble beginnings, the Trust now runs a range of enterprises; forestry, agriculture, and horticulture based business activities on Rangiwaea Island. After it paid off initial loans in the late nineties, it was able to turn its profits into dividends and grants, and other social services like the papakāinga housing. Coralie says the Trust is now looking forward to extending the development over the next ten years to meet shareholders’ needs now and in the future.

Phase one of the papakāinga project consisted of four kaumātua houses as well as the family home occupied by Gloria, Kororia (3) and Jae (2). There is opportunity for a further twelve homes to be built on the papakāinga.

One of the criteria for eligibility to live in the homes is a strong desire to return to the island and preparedness to play an active role on the marae and within the Island community.

For Gloria, this is a big plus.

Her grandmother is in one of the kaumātua flats and she relishes the opportunity her children have to learn from her and the other kaumātua.

Does she ever get lonely on the island, which although, as the crow flies, is close to Tauranga, has limited transport options?

“No, not at all,” Gloria says. "There’s the birds, the cows, pigs and horses.

It’s my home, and my marae. It’s perfect for us.”

image: Gloria Gardiner with Kororia (3) and Jae (2) outside their new home.