Many of us want the same thing for the neighbourhoods we live in – streets and walkways we can move through freely, with a sense of connection to the place we call home. Places that reflect who we are, and where we’re going.
In Kelston, this starts with a walkway linking Bamboo Grove and Hurley Place – a thoroughfare to the local shops and schools, used daily by families, students, and elderly residents alike.
When it was built, the thoroughfare wasn’t designed with intention. It was simply there – a passage between two points. And an unclaimed space doesn’t stay neutral: the less it felt like anyone’s, the less it was used, and the less it was used, the less safe it felt to be on. Elderly residents, who rely on the walkway to reach the shops, had started avoiding it altogether.
For Healthy Families Waitākere, an avoided walkway is a missed chance for everyday movement – the short, ordinary walks to school, to the shops, to a neighbours, that add up to how active a community stays, and how connected it stays, over time.
With the goal of reimagining the walkway as a popular and friendly thoroughfare, Kelston Community Hub – led on this project by Hub Manager Sa’e Saena, Events Coordinator Lesina Turua, and Support Worker Marie Sio – is working alongside the community to shape a response led by the people who actually live there.
Tim Makaafi, Pacific Outcomes Lead for Healthy Families Waitākere, supported the Hub team in co-facilitating a workshop with tamariki, exploring what they enjoyed about living in Kelston.
“The people of Kelston hold a lot of pride for the place they call home – it’s carved a unique place in people’s hearts and minds. During our workshop, we asked tamariki open-ended questions like ‘Kelston is…’ and ‘I love my school because…’, to really understand what Kelston’s legacy means to the people growing up in it.”
Tamariki answered with a clear sense of connection and belonging to Kelston: “Kelston is not a place, but where we come from and who we are,” and “Ko au ko Kerehana, ko Kerehana ko au.”
In response to the findings, Kelston Community Hub has commissioned local artist John Ulu to create a mural for the walkway, built directly from these answers – bringing intention and connection to what has, until now, simply been a passage between two places. Makaafi continues.
“A well-used street is a well-designed street. That’s the shift Bamboo Grove is heading towards: from a passage nobody claimed, to a walkway that reflects the tamariki who already call Kelston home, in their own words.”
When John Ulu’s mural is finished, the walk to school, to the shops, to a neighbour’s door will carry a little more of what Kelston actually is, because the people who use it were the ones who shaped it.
