“I love playing different sports with my kura friends. We have fun, learn new things, and push each other to give things a go.”- Weu (Year 3) tauira, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori ō Hoani Waititi
Tamariki and rangatahi at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori ō Hoani Waititi (TKKM) have always had the drive.
For years, kaiako (teachers) have supported the tauira (students) with mainstream sport and movement opportunities out of aroha – without funding, and without the connections and support with clubs and providers that make those opportunities sustainable. The mahi has been hard-won, it just hasn’t been resourced.
In 2026, that gap started closing. Through Sport NZ’s Tū Manawa Active Aotearoa, TKKM o Hoani Waititi is building a pathway into netball, touch, league, and basketball for all tauira, from teina at five through to tuakana at eighteen — one that carries their reo, their tikanga, their whakapapa with them, rather than asking them to leave it at the door.
That pathway is being built two ways at once. At kura, tauira get hands-on coaching in netball, touch, league, and basketball — learning the game itself, not just hearing about it. Beyond the gate, Jani Hohua is connecting tauira with local clubs and providers, and opening routes into coaching and umpiring so tauira see themselves shaping the game, not just playing it.
“Our tamariki want to take part in community sport,” says Pou Hakinakina Jani Hohua. “It’s our role to ensure that pathway is clear and free for them to travel with confidence and self-belief.”
Khlani Paenga-Hayward, Māori Outcomes Lead with Healthy Families Waitākere at Tuia Waitākere, is supporting that relationship-building with clubs and providers, and helping capture what’s working so the case for continuing it holds up. As a former tauira of the kura, with her own tamariki now enrolled, she’s watching it from both sides of the gate.
“I see it every day, the mahi being poured in, and how the tamariki respond to it. When you’ve lived it yourself, and your own tamariki are living it now, you already know what’s possible.”
The kura’s vision reaches further still. A sports academy – a place where excellence in te ao Māori and excellence in sport strengthen each other – is the horizon tauira are moving toward. A hui is planned to bring whānau into that conversation and share the picture of what’s being built together.
The kaupapa is taking shape in real time, through relationships made, opportunities opened, and tauira stepping into them. What’s being laid now is foundation. The tauira are already on it.
