In West Auckland, an initiative is asking the question: what if every rangatahi Māori and Pacific grew up knowing their waha — their voice, their smile, their hauora — was uniquely theirs? Knowing how to look after it, where to find support, and feeling confident enough to walk through that door.
“Your waha is more than teeth. Your mouth is where your hau, breath of life begins and ends, where your words come to life, your pepeha, your waiata, your karakia. Looking after your waha is looking after your story”
— AUT Oral Health Senior Lecturer/Kaiwhakaako, Chanae Ihimaera
For some of our tamariki and rangatahi, that connection – between mouth and hauora – has never been made.
Under-18s in Aotearoa are entitled to free public dental care. Yet for many Māori and Pasifika rangatahi in West Auckland, the system does not show up in ways that meet their needs. Services can be difficult to navigate are often distant, culturally and relationally.
This isn’t about young people avoiding care. It’s about a system that hasn’t been built to reach them, welcome them, or reflect them. When services remain disconnected from the communities they’re meant to serve, that gap becomes underservice. Underservice becomes inequity. And inequity becomes a pattern that follows our rangatahi into adulthood.
Oranga Waha starts somewhere different – not in a clinic – in a sports team.
Rangatahi receive personalised mouthguards alongside something just as important: a real, culturally grounded conversation about their oral health, their hauora, and what’s available to them. Healthy Families Waitākere Māori Systems Innovator, Kristen TeMoananui, explains.
“The entry point is sport because sport is already theirs — already safe, already affirming, already community. We’re not asking young people to come to health. We’re bringing the conversation to where they already belong.”
Oranga Waha is driven by Chanae Ihimaera of AUT, whose experience spans front-line clinical practice, community oral health projects and system level equity advisory. Her work supporting whānau centred initiaties from school-based programmes to cross-sector partnerships informs culturally grounded, accessible and future focused oral health solutions.
The Healthy Families team at Tuia Waitākere (formerly Sport Waitākere) connects the kaupapa to the communities it was built with and for.
We are in the early stages of this initiative. Partnerships are forming, the pilot is taking shape, and we are looking for the funders, organisations, and communities who can see what we see to join us.
If that’s you, we’d like to talk. Get in touch with Kristen TeMoananui, Healthy Families Waitākere please email: kristen.TeMoananui@tuiawaitakere.org.nz