Te Whānau o Waipareira and We Are Indigo announce a major partnership for Māori.

Today we are proud to announce a significant partnership with We Are Indigo to give whānau access to reshape the Māori small business economy.

Te Whānau o Waipareira and We Are Indigo are in a collaboration that will enable thousands of Māori across Aotearoa access to world class small business and digital capability education and mentoring services as part of a combined effort to transform the Māori small business economy.

The partnership will see Te Whānau o Waipareira provide leadership and governance support to We Are Indigo and its small business platform Manaaki, and will enable the company to continue to forge forward in the vital mahi they’re doing for Pakihi Māori, whānau Māori as well as the broader small business economy in Aotearoa says Waipareira CEO John Tamihere.

“We have followed the impressive track record this team has built up and want to do what we can to make sure they continue and support them to scale up that impact,” he says.

We Are Indigo co-founder Pat MacFie says the partnership goal is to transform the small business economy by supporting more Māori to build and run a successful small business as well as upskilling job seekers into better paying, future relevant careers in digital.

“The data is clear – when we increase the level of household income to Māori households it has a positive flow-on effect to many other aspects of life including health and wellbeing, education, the list goes on.

“Te Whānau o Waipareira are our tuākana, they have been trail blazers in supporting and enabling the aspiration of Māori for decades and bring the depth of knowledge and experience in this space that is invaluable to our mission and we are deeply humbled and grateful to partner with them in our mission”.

Tamihere says the fact that both organisations hold the wellbeing of our Māori at the heart of what they do was pivotal to the partnership.

“At Te Whānau o Waipareira we’ve been delivering positive impact into the lives of Māori since 1984, and the impact Indigo and Manaaki have delivered over the last three years shows their potential to become the type of organisation that can contribute to generational impact for our people. We see that and we want to support them in achieving that outcome, says Tamihere.

The partnership will focus on three priority outcomes:

Upskilling Māori job seekers into employment and/or self employment in digital through the scaled delivery of the Digital Doers education programme which will be made available free of charge to job seekers across Aotearoa.
Supporting more whānau Māori into self employment and small business through the Manaaki Business Mentors programme.
Enabling existing Pakihi Māori to build more sustainable, resilient and future ready businesses through the Whanake Small Business Accelerator.
“If by working together, Waipareira and Indigo can deliver these three outcomes at scale over the next five years we’ll transform New Zealand’s small business economy. More importantly we’ll see an economic transformation in the livelihoods of thousands of whānau Māori – and that’s what this partnership is really all about,” says MacFie.