Whanganui

Our Relationship with Whanganui

Caritas connects with the Whanganui River – Te Awa Tupua through communities at Kaiwhaiki and Hiruharama (Jerusalem). In 2012, we journeyed with Claudette Habesch from Caritas Jerusalem to Hiriharama on the Whanganui River. Claudette shared with representatives from the local Maori community their mutual experiences of dispossession and loss of land and culture while Claudette gifted them with a Peace Lamp from the Holy Land (link – if still have Peace Lamps on new website). 

Through Caritas State of the Environment for Oceania reports, we have also told the story of environmental and land use changes impacting the people of the Whanganui River, as well as their hopes for the future now that Te Awa Tupua has been recognised as a ‘person’ in law, and a partnership of care being established between iwi and government.