Te Whare Waiora, a safe place focussing on well-being and building community resilience, is officially opening its doors today in the Tauranga CBD.

Te Tuinga Whanau is holding the formal opening of their new buildings on The Strand and Anson Street today.

Nearly 100 invited civic, community and education leaders from around Tauranga have been invited to the opening, including Western Bay of Plenty District Council Mayor Garry Webber and former Tauranga City Councillor Terry Molloy.

After a powhiri, Te Tuinga Whanau Chief Imagination Officer Tommy Wilson will invite Sir Paul Adams to speak.

'Sir Paul has been our patron for 10 years. We started with one house next door on the corner of The Strand and he opened that seven years ago. Now look where we've come, and he's been behind us all the way.”

Tommy Wilson in the stairwell of Whare Waiora. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.

From the early small beginnings addressing homelessness, Tommy says Te Tuinga Whanau has increased its footprint, now administering 27 houses, three motels and the RSA.

'So now we want to move into the well-being space, get past Covid, and address how we increase the resilience and the well-being of our most vulnerable sector of the community. Maori, unemployed, prisoners, at risk youth.”

Tommy says the new well-being place, Whare Waiora, will be 'where we can kind of triage them”, addressing their needs.

'They will feel comfortable coming to an environment like this, when they might not feel comfortable going to a WINZ office, to a doctor's surgery or to an alternative education school."

One of the rooms at Whare Waiora. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.

'We've got seven of the key principals coming to the opening on Wednesday from the education sector, because we want them to bring those at-risk kids who are falling through the cracks at school, to this place, where they can learn where they belong, how they can connect.”

Waiora is a healing well-being place which Tommy says was one of the original names for Tauranga which means ‘safe anchorage'.

'So we are creating a safe anchorage in this place, which has been built by people like my mother's brother.”

The building on The Strand where the formal opening will take place. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.

Photos of the founders will be on display at the opening which will take the form of a powhiri, followed by speeches, waiata, and food provided by The Happy Puku. Aquinas College Year 12 student Mia Thomas will present her award winning speech 'Am I Māori enough'.

Aquinas College Year 12 student Mia Thomas. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.

'Our ancestors created this Tauranga Moana area for a place for Maori to gather, a place of healing, a place of well-being," says Tommy.

"And here we are, we're opening Te Whare Waiora, a place where our most needy and our youth who are disconnected for whatever reason can reconnect with who they are and where they belong.”

The slogan of Whare Waiora is 'to support, activate and enable individuals and whanau to read their fullest potential”.

'So this is post-Covid, getting into building community, building self-awareness, building resilience through finding out where you belong. There's a lot of uncertainty at this time, so this is what Waiora is, and we're opening it at 11am on Wednesday, July 13.”

Te Tuinga Whanau Chief Imagination Officer Tommy Wilson outside the Whare Waiora building in Anson Street, which is being formally opened today. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.

A team of artists have been working at the location for three to four months under the tutorship of Stu McDonald, a Ta Moko master, and Robyn Williams, an artist from Maketu who created the murals in a stairwell area between the ground and first floors of the Te Whare Waiora building.

A large octopus floating down the side of the stairs acknowledges the story of Kupe who set out in his canoe to hunt an octopus, and such was the length of the pursuit that it brought him to New Zealand where he pursued it all the way to Cook Strait – known as Raukawakawa.

'They're telling the story of creation, of when Kupe arrived, the naming of Aotearoa, it's telling the story of when Maori arrived here and named Tauranga after a safe anchorage. So we want to create a safe space, a safe anchorage for our most vulnerable, especially our youth.”

Tommy would also like to see 60 apartments built on the corner of The Strand to provide affordable housing for families.

'We're allowed to go up six levels now. We could have a kohanga and gardens here. And breathe life into the CBD.

'The only Maori living here before we arrived were really just the people living on the streets. We want families, it's like giving a huge hongi, a breath of life. We're hongi-ing the CBD. It's about inclusion.”

Tommy Wilson looking at some of the mural art on display inside Whare Waiora. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.

The Tauranga Golf Club have donated items to Te Tuinga Whanau, filling up three storage sheds.

'This is how you fix up and heal a community, by everyone being involved,” says Tommy.

'When we first saw the need for homelessness, we couldn't buy any houses when we wanted to start our first homeless house. Sir Paul Adams came on board and helped us.”

That first house is still in operation, opposite the waka on the corner of McLean Street and The Strand.

'That was about seven years ago. And here we are 25 or 26 houses later, three motels and the RSA. We're back right where we first started. We feel like it's ordained, and our capacity is increased by having wonderful community kingpins around us – and I'm talking community kingpins of Maori, Pakeha, young, old, rich, poor. Bring everybody together, we can actually solve anything in our own back yard.”

The Happy Hikoi map. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.

In the carpark that borders the Sun Media building, there is a large map mural attached to the wall next to the basketball net.

'It's called the Happy Hikoi,” says Tommy. 'We start from here, bring the kids in and they learn the history of Tauranga with all these beautiful murals, and then we take them on a walk. Don't take the history to the classroom, bring the classroom to the history.”

Tommy says they are training storytellers who will then take school groups around on a two-hour loop walk visiting places of significance which are shown on the map mural.

'They will learn the history by walking it, and breathing it, and understanding it.”

He's looking forward to the school principals coming to visit, so that they can look at working together to bring classes to do the Happy Hikoi walk.

'Mostly the at-risk kids. We will deal with at-risk people,” says Tommy.

'Everyone has a point of disconnection. What we've learned through homelessness, working with gangs, working with addicted people – you find out where they disconnected – that's what Mike King does and you reconnect them. And what a better way than walking and talking with them. And they come back and have some kai here with the Happy Puku. A happy hikoi and a happy puku.”

Tommy is also planning to open up the Happy Hikoi walk to the tourism market.

'We've been talking with Tourism BOP on how we plug into the domestic tourism market and the corporate market. One of the corporates wants to bring all their team down here and do the walk as part of their Christmas event.”

The area holds a historical significance to Maori, captured in many murals including the outdoor mural along the Anson Street side of main building telling the story of Matariki.

'We teach the kids about the seven stars of Matariki using visual art forms. These are done by street artists and spray can guys who have been looking for a wall to showcase their art. This is their wall.”

Bordering the other side of the building is a long sign up the walkway written in both English and Te Reo Maori: 'What is the food of the leader? It is knowledge. It is communication” or 'He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he korero.”

A garden courtyard area. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.

Inside there is another entrance going outside to a private courtyard with barbecue, garden and seating area, with a mural telling the story of creation with Rangi and Papa.

A doorway at one end takes people through to a residential home run by Te Tuinga Whanau.

'It's the gateway to our first homeless house, so they can come over here.”

Another doorway heads inside to a large meeting room with a boxing ring at one end. Seats are set out ready for the formal opening on Wednesday, with photos on the stage showcasing the founders of Te Tuinga Whanau.

The well-being centre across the road on Anson Street also features an ‘I Am Hope' counselling place and healing room named ‘Te Whare Tapa Whā – the Four Dimensions of Well-Being'.

There is also a music room, dream room, and spaces for people to meet, talk and reflect, and learn new skills. Maori Tai Chi and Kapa Haka classes are amongst those being run in the new building.

Connecting the spaces is a visual garden around a stairwell using art and plants to create a restful sitting area.

'We are using art to heal. That's what kids can relate to. These are all places where kids can just breathe and then engage in what their challenges are. So we have created this space for them to breathe.”

The music room. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.

Tommy says Maketu artist Robyn Williams spent three months in the visual garden painting the sea creatures in an underwater themed mural.

In the garden is a pond made of blue resin with a pounami, similar to the life membership pounami presented to people who have been with Te Tuinga Whanau five years or more, and a medal presented for the Battle of Gate Pa exhibition embedded in it.

The entry to the building from Anson Street acknowledges the patronship of the Adams family.

'This was made possible through the amazing generosity of Sir Paul and Lady Cheryl Adams and their children Sarah and Scott,” says the sign at the centre. 'May their kindness and never-ending ethic of service to their fellow human beings flow on forever.”

The sign is also written in Maori: 'He tohu aroha tēnei kit e whanau Adams mō te ngākau atawhai ki ngā tāngata katoa. Nō konei, ka puāwai tēnei wāhi whakaora tangata – 'Te Whare Tapa Whā”. He wāhi mīharo, he wāhi whakaruruhau.

Tommy Wilson in the dream room at Whare Waiora. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.