Te Mana
o te Whānau
The power of Whānau
“I was given some advice before making it into parliament, to not take anything personally, or it’ll eat you up. Well, I can’t help but take everything personally that has been said in this chamber. In only a couple of weeks, in only 14 days, this government has attacked my whole world from every corner. Health, taiao, wai, whenua, natural resources, Māori wards, reo, tamariki, and the right of me and you to be in this country under Te Tiriti. How can I not take anything personally when it feels like these policies were made about me?”
Hana Maipi Clarke
Wāhine are significant within Te Ao Māori because they are the creators of life, the portal through which our human existence is possible. Wāhine are the change makers, catalysts for action, social justice champions, decision makers, and political strategists - the respected voice of reason, and leaders within their whānau, hapū, iwi and community.
Wāhine embody servant leadership at every level of society. Nothing happens on the marae until wāhine deliver the karanga. This signifies and honours the sacred role of wāhine as the conduit to unite those past, present and those yet to come. Wāhine choose where and how to educate our children, whether or not to be vaccinated, where to shop and what to buy, whether our people vote, and for whom they vote. Wāhine are the lifeblood of our marae, schools, hapū, iwi, organisations, and the burgeoning 80 billion dollar Māori economy.
“Take care of our children
take care of what they hear
take care of what they see
take care of what they feel
for how the children grow so will be the shape of Aotearoa.”
Dame Whina Cooper
Te Mana
o te Kaupapa
The power of our work
Relative Limited is a boutique communications agency with a focus on Wāhine and Whānau Māori. We have delivered many successful kaupapa in conjunction with Mad Ave Community Trust to provide pathways to higher levels of leadership, excellence, and enterprise for wāhine, whānau, hapū, Iwi and communities. What makes our kaupapa successful and effective is the 27,000 wāhine and whānau that stand with us. We empower wāhine and whānau māori as agents of change in their own lives, whānau, community and Iwi.
We specialise in coordinating and facilitating a wide range of creative innovative rautaki (strategies) specifically for wāhine and whānau Māori. Relative Ltd has a demonstrated competence and commitment to investing in and growing wāhine and whānau leadership and potentiation. We are masterful at navigating the needs of wāhine and whānau working collaboratively with others to co-design and support impactful interventions for Māori that deliver social outcome benefits for all.
Our purpose is to EMPOWER, ENABLE and ELEVATE wāhine and whānau māori by any means necessary to positively impact wellbeing, social transformation, economic growth, and political stability for ourselves, whānau, community and Aotearoa.
Kia eke ki tōna Taumata That she/he may attain to the excellence of their being or their authentic existence
Maori Marsden
Te Ngako
o te Mahi
The social change model at the heart of who we are and what we do
Ngā Kete o te Wānanga
Pou that support our tikanga include:
- Established on Kaupapa māori principles
- Experts and thought leaders for all things Mana Māori
- Evidence-based research informs our tailored interventions
- Collective and collaborative – we are masters of co-design
- Together we can make a difference – we ignite a shared vision
- Adaptable, innovative, and flexible – our community intelligence and lived experience provides real time feedback that informs our approach
- We build mana enhancing high trust communities
- Equity, diversity, and inclusion
- is central to who we are and what we create
- We invest in the personal and professional development of the wāhine that work for us
- We have a strong focus on engaging developing and retaining wāhine and whānau Māori in the social media and technology space.
Mahi tahi
The Ask - Working together for greater collective impact
We are ready, willing and able to enhance and add value to your communications strategy and planning, media portfolios, and creative content. We have the cultural knowledge, technical expertise and lived experience to tell and show the stories that powerfully engage our people and provide pathways to transformational change for the betterment of all.
Let us help you to position your brand/ pūrakau (stories) to make impactful change where it matters most, at the grassroots.
Relative Ltd curates a network of Māori creatives, talent and expert storytellers that allow us to execute with excellence. We have mana enhancing relationships that span the motu in parliament, iwi, hapū, community and whānau. We are the ones we have been waiting for!
Nāku te rourou Nāu te rourou Ka ora ai te iwi - With your food basket and your food basket the people will thrive
Ngā Whainga
Outcomes
We will work with you to
Engage with Wāhine and whānau Māori by developing and designing impactful communication rautaki (strategies)
Develop meaningful and targeted content and impactful transformative experiences
Evaluate and measure the impact of your brand/pūrakau through real time feedback
Codesign community engagement rautaki with wāhine, whānau, community, and ngā Iwi Māori
Provide access to relationships and networks with wāhine and whānau māori of influence, Marae, Iwi, Hapu, and Mana whenua.
“Investing in Wāhine māori is imperative because they bring a unique perspective to decisions that affect people, land and resources. As Whare Tangata they link to whakapapa and whenua and are central to whānau, hapū, and iwi wellbeing.”
Willie Jackson.
CASE STUDIES
Te Pou Tokomanawa
Veeshayne Patuwai is Relative’s founder and Manging Director as well as the Kaihautu of our waka. Relative Limited is the cumulative embodiment and expression of over 30 years of experience in the communications and community development sectors. She is a business owner, founder, and mother of two daughters giving her skin in the game when it comes to the realisation of wāhine actualising their potential.
Spending the first 15 years of her career at Ngāti Whatua owned radio station Mai FM, Veesh was the first wāhine māori to win the Best New Broadcaster Award for two consecutive years. She was a presenter at Māori Television, and executive producer for their production company Mad Ave Studios. She has worked in film, television, radio, and corporate and community led communications.
Veesh has spent the past decade developing award winning empowerment programmes for wāhine. The most recent being the establishment of Mana Wāhine Aōtearoa (MWA), the largest community of wāhine māori in the country. The network of over 20,000 wāhine is the power and potency of Relative Ltd and is the basis of our innovation and execution. She is currently co-designing the bicultural module of the flagship program “Breakout Leaders” with Global Women.
MWA builds on the foundation of a wide eyed young girl from the sticks, who came to the big smoke, got an opportunity and turned it into an award winning career spanning more than 30 years. Growing up in Moerewa, has embedded within Veesh a staunch unwavering commitment to serve our most vulnerable communities. This lived experience allows her to connect and communicate with those that the system finds most difficult to engage with and serve effectively. Coming from the hood and thriving despite all of the odds provides a role model for other wāhine to do the same.
If we can see it we can be it. This is at the heart of our mahi and is expressed and amplified in all that we do.
Mana Wāhine Aotearoa is
- A supportive community and network for and by Wāhine Māori
- Designed to empower, elevate, and enable wāhine to learn our ancestral mātauranga, reo, and tikanga
- A sacred space for wāhine to belong, vibe, learn, connect, share and grow in a supportive high value community.
Mana Wāhine Aotearoa provides
- Tools that enable wāhine to be seen, heard, understood, honoured and celebrated
- Connection to ourselves as mana wāhine, our whakapapa, and our identity
- Transformative experiences that build a scaffold to develop our innate identity and mana as wāhine
- A space to experience ourselves as the powerful, capable, mana-full wāhine we are.
Relative Limited is a boutique communications agency with a focus on Wāhine and Whānau Māori.