Our Owners

From the high mountains of Taranaki to the swells of the Cook Strait, the journey our tūpuna took to settle our tribes upon Motueka’s soil was long and treacherous at times. To remember and pay tribute to our ancestors’ eventual successive migration (heke) to Te Tau Ihu (top the of south), a journey of almost 1000km, the Heke Ora Challenge was born.

Te Heke Ora Challenge is a 30 day, 1000km team exercise challenge. Each week of the challenge nearly 100 NRAIT members from all over Aotearoa either walk, run, cycle, swim or paddle to contribute to their teams’ weekly distance goal. The weekly goal relates to corresponding distance of each segment of the heke our tūpuna undertook to get here.

A particularly special start to Te Heke Ora was having the Chase family travel to Kawhia where Mereama Chase did a karakia to launch the challenge on 9 January.

Chase whanau at Kawhia

The overall goal of the challenge is to encourage NRAIT whānau to become healthier and more active in 2017. With 12 teams registered in its first year the challenge has got off to a great start.

It’s also really empowering to see that the teams are made of members across the entire country, which requires impressive leadership by the team captains and perseverance to encourage their team mates to together complete the 1000km challenge within the set 30 days.

There have been some really inspiring stories coming out of Te Heke Ora already, for example one challenger walks 2.4km everyday on their walking frame to add to the team total, and another who swims every morning in the ocean.

The challengers are sharing their weekly updates on the Heke Ora Challenge Facebook page. Sharing and hearing these stories help motivate all those involved, and hopefully encourages other NRAIT members to participate in next year’s event or start moving today, even if they haven’t signed up.

Te Heke Ora Challenge ultimately is to get NRAIT members active while reconnecting you back to your identity, whakapapa and whenua, so without being a registered challenger, you can still follow the updates from other NRAIT members and get lots great ideas from the Heke Ora Challenge fitness and wellbeing coach Moana Wakefield, and learn about how it connects back to our ancestors’ journey.