By Khylee Baker – Kaituitui (co-ordinator) for Whare Ora / Healthy Homes
In September we celebrated the first year of the Whare Ora / Healthy Homes programme.
In our first month of home assessments, we found inadequate bedding in most households. Some families didn’t have enough blankets. And so many blankets were mink, which is hard to wash and dry during cold weather.
I soon realised that the funding I had for winter bedding was not going to stretch far enough. So the task became to find new bedding, and lots of it!
I reached out to the industry, asking at first for heavily discounted products, before realising I’d have to ‘ask big’ for free items instead. Around the same time I contacted other providers of the Healthy Homes Initiative (HHI) in Te Waipounamu and in Whanganui-a-Tara. This proved a good way to make stronger connections and share my challenges.
We quickly achieved a good result! Linen House offered a batch of duvet covers that had been recalled due to minor defects. But we had to pick up the whole batch – 26 pallets’ worth! Forty-seven cubic meters, weighing 5,000kg. And we had to pick it up within three weeks!
All HHI providers leapt into action. Te Puawaitanga ki Ōtautahi organised storage in Christchurch, and Aukaha Dunedin negotiated shipping.
Te Piki Oranga paid the shipping invoice and together we hauled, recorded and distributed more than 1,900 packs of winter duvet covers with matching pillowcases – a total retail value of almost $420,000.
Most were large sizes, so we sent the Californian King-size covers to the Christchurch Women’s Prison workshop for repurposing into single-bed covers.
As a result, almost 1,000 packs have been given to whānau through the HHI providers in their rohe. For Te Piki Oranga the greatest impact of this mahi has been reaching the unreachable.
We can now provide bedding to whānau during home assessments, without hesitation. We’ve used the bedding as raffle prizes at Mana Wāhine events, as goods to exchange for vouchers at stores, and as koha for iwi events.
One whānau who received bedding linked us to all kōhanga of Te Tauihu. Through that network we completed Whare Ora workshops with three kōhanga and have two more booked in. All whānau attending are registering for help with their cold homes.
There’s much more to say about Whare Ora, but this is one of our greatest successes. Mauri Ora!
