Six years ago when I worked at Careers New Zealand (formerly Career Services) I met and worked alongside two amazing career practitioners, Fiona and Huia.  Even though we ended up working in different organisations, we remained in touch, and in the past year met more regularly for dinner catch-ups.

The kōrero (conversation) around the dinner table is indescribable, but I’ll try…  We listen, we reflect, we critique, we question, we eat, but best of all, we laugh!  Beneath the humour, is an overwhelming sense of pride and respect that we have for each other.

Just before Christmas, we had dinner at Szimpla and talked animatedly about the issues and challenges surrounding the career development of Maori and Pasifika peoples.  With our energy levels soaring, we all agreed that we needed to do something.  Enough with the talk fest.  A CALL TO ACTION became our mantra.

Cut to today.  At 1pm we hosted a hui/fono with a group of talented Maori and Pasifika career practitioners, including the esteemed Dr Lynette Reid and Hana Lambert. We put the call out and people responded.

We began with the beautiful waiata Te Aroha…

Te Aroha, Te whakapono, Me te rangimarie, Tatou tatou e.

English translation:  Love, Faith, And peace, Be amongst us all

We posed several pertinent questions to the group and a rich kōrero ensued.  I will share these insights another time, but the general sense is that there a duty of care, and a sense that there are like-minds who wish to do more for our communities.

Only time will tell what this is, or what this looks like.  A call to action has been issued.

I look forward to more kōrero to come.