Kia ora e hoa,
Wow, can you believe Christmas was just 3 weeks ago?!
I hope you’re feeling rested and if you needed it, I hope you’ve been able to rebalance.
Mostly though, I hope you enjoyed however your time was spent. That sounds like a throwaway comment but it’s not. I’m a firm believer in not buying into the idea that the holidays are the fun part, and all the rest is a grind where we deprioritise well-being and whānau, for the sake of a two-week break at the end of the year. Culturally though, we can sometimes buy into the horrible idea of enduring 50 weeks of the year, so we can enjoy 2 of them on break. I spent most maths classes asking my friend Roach questions over my shoulder, but even I know the maths isn’t mathing on those numbers and it would make more sense to actively enjoy the time between Christmas breaks, than focus on that tiny part of the year as where we get our recharge or joy. It’s a bit inconvenient to hold that viewpoint and spend the last third of every year grinding away until nearly exactly the start of the Christmas break, but hei aha, never mind - that’s another kōrero - the point is, I hope you enjoyed whatever you were doing - whether it was work, play, holiday, time with your kids at an age they’ll never be again, whatever. Because all of that can be enjoyed if we try and I hope you do. I’ll stop there since the message I sent you on New Year’s Eve had a longer list of hopes for 2024, it’s here in case you missed it:
Our mates in the schools and social services we worked with last year are still sending in thank-you notes and pictures, we’ll email these as we can, and share some on the Aotearoa Facebook page and Instagram page too.
If you missed this one though here’s a quick video saying thank you from me and some of our rangatahi leaders from across the motu. (Re-watching this reminded me how tired I was this time last month and how grateful I am to have been able to recharge while making up at least some of the time I spent away from my own kids while Shoebox Christmas was in full swing!)
Is there any kaupapa or topic you’d like our rangatahi leaders and I to share kōrero on?
We had some feedback in the survey that some of our community would like more regular kōrero and communication throughout the year. As part of this Arita and I are sitting down next week to start recording some podcast/video type kōrero. We already have some topics people have asked to hear about, but if you’ve got anything you’d like to ask or any kaupapa/topic you’d like to hear us explore, just comment on this post or hit reply and we’ll do our best :)
If you didn’t find the time to share your feedback with us, it’s not too late!
If you took part as an individual click here.
If you took part as a whānau click here.
If you signed up as an organisation and we haven’t already been in touch, click here.
If you didn’t take part this year and would like to let us know why we’d love to hear from you too! Click here.
Thank you again to the businesses who supported us last year with sponsorship, especially our amazing friends at Te Wānanga o Raukawa. Without their support, we couldn’t have helped make community, aroha, and connection happen for 17,000 tamariki across Aotearoa. And by we I mean you, me, Arita, Jayden, Vyaan, Tiara, Karnia, Lisa, and the rest of our amazing Shoebox Christmas and Koha Tree movement.
That’s us for now. I’m looking forward to sharing more on our plans for 2024 with those interviews and podcast episodes.
Kia pai te timata o te wiki nei - enjoy the start of this week!
Pera