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//021 Dr Amber Aranui, researcher for Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Programme, Te Papa Museum

Dr Amber Aranui (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) has a special job. As a researcher for the Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Programme at Te Papa Museum, she has spent the past 10 and a half years searching the world for our tūpuna, and working to bring them home. The bones and body parts of some of our ancestors are in museums, universities and private collections. Old. Young. Tāne. Wāhine. Amber’s mahi is to find them, learn about how they came to be there, investig...

//020 Lynell Tuffery Huria, patent attorney

Lynell Tuffrey Huria is the only Māori patent attorney in Aotearoa. She is helping Māori navigate the intellectual property system, identify cultural property and develop protocols and processes for recognition and protection within Western structures.Of Ngati Ruanui and Nga Ruahine Rangi whakapapa, she is passionate about creating a better future for our people and, in 2018, co-organised the first Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho conference to discuss ways we can protect our cultural heritage i...

//019 Damaris Coulter, hospitality Queen + digital entrepreneur

Damaris Coulter (Ngāti Kahu) started her hospitality journey as a child, working at her uncle’s restaurant in Kaitaia. She grew up around hospo and spent her early adult life learning from some of the best chefs and restauranteurs in the business, both here, and in Italy and the UK. When she returned to Aotearoa, she opened Coco’s Cantina with her sister, and ran the restaurant for almost 10 years before signing over her share to pursue a world-changing idea. Her new pro...

//017 Donna Tamaariki + //018 Moana Tamaariki-Pohe, kaitiaki

Donna Tamaariki and Moana Tamaariki-Pohe are twin sisters whose affinity for the Ocean was passed down to them from their tūpuna. Of Māori (Ngāti Whatua Orakei, Te Waiohua), Cook Islands, Tahitian and Tauiwi descent, the pair have spent their entire lives working to protect and preserve the ocean. Whether it be through waka ama, navigation, teaching, governance or policy change, they are working to have an everlasting positive effect on their tūpuna moana, the Waitematā.The pair are also ha...

//016 Chelsea Winstanley, Oscar-nominated producer + filmmaker

Chelsea Winstanley (Ngāti Ranginui) is a filmmaker. She directed the documentary Tame Iti: The man behind the moko, and co-directed Waru, the heart-wrenching film about child abuse, made by 8 Māori female directors. Her producer credits include What We do in the Shadows, and the short film Night Shift. And most recently, she helped Hepi Mita make a documentary about his mum, the pioneering Merata Mita – sharing the stories of how she decolonised the screen.Now B...

//015 Kim Tairi, librarian

When you think of a librarian, what image pops into your head? Because for me, before I met Kim Tairi, I saw an old nanny wearing a cardigan, glasses with a beaded chain, and a long burgundy skirt.Damn all those television programmes that embed stereotypes into my brain!Our NUKU //015 couldn’t be further away from that picture. Kim manages a university library and works with 100 staff. She has been working in this field, in different roles, for more than 25 years.Born in Otepoti, she has spent...

//014 Ninakaye Taane-Tinorau, record label manager + ex-sex worker

Ninakaye Taane-Tinorau is of Ngati Maniapoto whakapapa. She was born and raised in Otautahi, Christchurch before moving to Auckland at age 19. There, she became a peep show dancer and stripper, working in the sex industry for 4 years. With that lifestyle, came an addiction to drugs and alcohol. She isn’t one to shy away from this period in her life, in fact, she talks about it openly to help other wahine know the realities of this world.Today, the māmā of three (and new nana) is proudly...

//013 Hinewirangi Kohu-Morgan, tohunga of taonga puoro + survivor

Hinewirangi is one of those kuia that you want to sit with for hours. Her knowledge, her experience and her stories, are mesmerising. She is a writer and poet. An activist and a tohunga of taonga puoro. She has worked in rape crisis centres and, in prison rehabilitation.In this episode we cover so many topics, as you do when you sit at the table with wahine full of wisdom. We talk about racism, Atua wahine and kaitiakitanga. Hinewirangi shares her personal story of sexual assault, how she faced ...

//012 Dr Huhana Hickey, crown director + disability advocate

Dr Huhana Hickey (Ngāti Tahinga, Tainui, Ngai Tai) is a Crown Director and a passionate advocate for our disabled community, our whanau hauā.She has a long standing interest in human rights, particularly the rights of people who come from marginal backgrounds. She often comments on the consequences of discrimination and social oppression.Of Māori, Navajo, Aboriginal and Sami whakapapa, Huhana was raised in Stratford with a Pākeha adoptive whanau. At birth, her ethnicity was falsified, removi...

//011 Reina Vaai, defence lawyer + children’s book author

Reina Vaai is from Sataua, Savai’i. She lived in Samoa in her early years, until a cyclone destroyed her village and, her home. Her parents made the decision to move to New Zealand permanently. Here, she grew up in a humble home that housed their wider whānau. Her parents and siblings all shared one room. Upon leaving school, Reina pursued a career in law, and decided to practice criminal law. Not one to be confined to single career pathway, this ambitious young woman has also worked as ...

//010 Angela Watene, consultant

Angela Watene lives in the city that never sleeps, New York, USA, working as a management consultant with one of the world’s largest accountancy firms.  Her current area of focus is financial crimes, working with organisations to help mitigate against the threat of fraud.Of Tainui whakapapa, Angela grew up in Māngere. Her career started at Price Chopper Otahuhu and KFC at the local town centre. She didn’t go to university, didn’t graduate with honours, instead her adventurous spirit ...

//009 Hana Tapiata, lifestyle blogger

Hana Tapiata is a lifestyle blogger living by indigenous philosophies and mātauranga Māori. Her passion is promoting tūpuna mātauranga in as many different mediums, and on as many different platforms, as possible.With a combined online following of more than 20,000, this self-published author believes that if you know yourself, and your whakapapa intimately, nothing will stop you living into your potential.In this episode we talk about rugby, and rock lifting. About Tahiti’s ance...

//008 Meri Te Tai Mangakahia, suffragist

In 2018 Aotearoa celebrated 125 years of suffrage, of women winning the right to vote. One wahine who played an integral part of that history making moment was Meri Te Tai Mangakahia. Of Te Reinga, Ngati Manawa and Te Kaitutae of Te Rarawa, she was the first woman ever recorded to have addressed the Kotahitanga Parliament. In that time she requested Māori women not only be given the right to vote, but that they also be eligible to sit in the Māori Parliament. In our only posthumous profil...

//007 Dr Lily Fraser, GP specialising in low carb hig/healthy fat nutrition

Dr Lily Fraser is a GP with a special interest in low carb high/healthy fat nutrition. With a 15 year medical career she has seen the effects of chronic illness and, on the flip side, the positive effects that a lifestyle change can have on individuals. She wants to show that low carb is a normal way of eating. You could even say, a traditional way of eating. In this episode we speak with the Turuki Healthcare Clinical Director about her Kai Tahu whakapapa and, being a Māori...

//006 Michele Wilson, period underwear creator

Michele Wilson (Tainui, Ngati Pāoa) grew up identifying as an ‘urban’ Māori, and although she didn’t learn te reo me ōna tikanga as a child, she always felt an incredible connection to her tūpuna and te ao Māori. After working (unhappily) as a corporate lawyer and then suffering with postnatal depression after the birth of her second child, she was led into the ngahere to begin her healing and, her journey to reconnect with her culture. Now, the owner of&...

//005 Jacqueline Paul, landscape architect + rangatahi advocate

At only 25, Jacqueline Paul (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga) is already working in policy advocacy with a passion to have the youth and Indigenous voice included across governance boards.This landscape architect has a keen research interest focused in building better homes, towns and communities. She wants to improve Māori housing, mobilise rangatahi (youth) and Māori voices, and improve architecture and urban planning with transformative policies. The big goal? ...

//004 Kiri Nathan, fashion designer + entrepreneur

Designer and weaver Kiri Nathan (Tainui, Ngā Puhi) has spent the past 9 years building a fashion brand from competition-winning garments at Style Pasifika to a high-end label dressing some of the world’s most influential people; including Beyonce, Barack and Michelle Obama and, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.In this episode she shares her journey. We talk about her childhood in Scotland growing up on the motorcycle racing circuit, her time as a 19 year old solo mother study...

//003 Mo’Ju, First Nations musician

Mo’ju is from Te Whenua Moemoeā, the land of dreamtime, Australia. She is an ARIA nominated artist of mixed Filipino and Aboriginal heritage, from the Wiradjuri people of NSW. Her latest album Native Tongue is her most personal yet. It talks about being mixed race and, that feeling of straddling a line between where you belong and, questioning if you are enough. I sat down with the singer-songwriter in between sound check during a recent gig in Auckland to talk about ident...

//002 Veeshayne Patuwai, leadership champion for young women

Veeshayne Patuwai (nee Armstrong) is most recognised from her days in radio as a DJ for the urban Māori station Mai Fm. In the 90s, she moved to the big smoke of Auckland from small town Moerewa, quickly making her mark in the industry by becoming the first Māori female to ever win Best New Broadcaster at the Mobil Radio Awards. While she is known for her radio and acting career, it is her mahi supporting kōhine Māori that sits closest to her heart. As the creator and kaitiaki of U...

//001 Melissa Robinson-Cole, crochet artist + body positivity advocate

Melissa Robinson-Cole is of Ngāti Hine and Ngāti Kahu descent.  She is a full-time artist and designer, and is also a staunch advocate for body positivity. Lissy, as she likes to be known, is also a walking bubble of joy. It’s a feeling she is passionate about, going as far as covering her car in fluro/neon crochet for her latest art project #JoyRide – spreading joy, quite literally, around town. She is effervescent, vibrant and, makes a really yummy cheese dip!  In this epi...