About Us

The Hina Collective exists because being wāhine Māori, being wāhine is not a side note. It’s everything!

One that we can reclaim, discover and liveWe’ve carried a lot. We’ve adapted. We’ve been strong in ways that no one bothered to name. And sometimes, in the middle of doing what needs to be done, we’ve lost our own voice.

This kaupapa is a place to come back. To be honest. To be held. To be challenged. To remember our strength, and then build a way of living that actually supports it. .We’re here to translate mātauranga Māori into modern-day practice, its a superpower.

The Long Version…

Being Maori, is a superpower that I have had to reclaim and recalibrate over time in the mastery of self and in thinking collectively. And that makes sense, right? We are never one thing, but many things and many collective experiences gathered inside and outside ourselves. But I didn't always know that, and for most of my years on Papatūānuku, I have lost myself time and time again. That feeling that I would never be enough… Enough of a wahine, as a māmā, as a māori, as a manager and in the quiet of my own mind, it would ravage my thoughts daily. That crushing weight of self-doubt and limiting beliefs, that voice is loud. So I put my hand up, wanting change.

Shit, it was hard, but I knew it would be but what held me up was the awe of our pūrakau and our mātauranga in navigating this journey. A journey of discovery, exploring connections, growing my awareness which led to tūpuna-atua inspired action in creating the life that I realised I wanted. In the end, I had to push through the mamae, the doubt, the regret, and the excuses. The cost was too much, and I wasn't getting younger. To get there, though, I had to do something different.

The Hina Collective is a kaupapa that came from my journey of change. I wanted to create a safe place to be vulnerable and turn up with little because not all of us had access to te ao māori, let alone be celebrated and amplified. To create wānanga that helped us journey our emotions and our stories connecting through pūrakau of our tūpuna and atua. We wanted to share mātauranga māori frameworks, tools and resources to navigate the deep dives inside and outside of ourselves. And finally, to create spaces where we could come together and share with each other, telling our stories, challenges wins, and learnings.