Manukura | Riana Manuel CEO of Te Pou and Blueprint  

Ko Moehau kei waho 

Ko Te Aroha kei roto 

Ko Hauraki te whenua 

Ko Tīkapa te moana 

Ko Marutūahu te tangata 

Ko Manaia toku ukaipo 

Ko Manaia toku marae 

Ko Te Kouorehua te whare tupuna 

Ko Ngairihanga te whare kai 

Ko Kakatarahae te awa e haererere ana ki ngā ngutu o Tikapa moana 

Ko Ngāti Pukenga, Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Kahungunu oku Iwi 

Tihei Mauri Ora. 

My favourite tongikura was uttered prophetically by Kingi Tawhiao which states:

E kore tēnei whakaoranga e huri ki tua ō aku mokopuna

My mokopuna will not inherit the place that I did.

It reminds us to ensure we think about mokopuna decisions which is not just a here and now discussion it is about making the kind of decisions that will impact the very future they will have to live in long after we are gone.

Ko wai ahau: 

I was born to my village and my people of Manaia and have spent my whole life playing, learning, being guided by and being accountable to my people and my hapori of Manaia.

I am the eldest daughter of my parents Harry Haerengarangi Mikaere and Ruth Mikaere (nee Davey) and one of 6 siblings which includes my 2 older whāngai brothers.

Growing up in a very rural and isolated community has been the joy of my life and a stark reminder at every turn that the system often forgets about the far away spaces where getting services to us just gets hard.  So, we have learnt to pivot and improvise often and most importantly we like to grow our own tomorrow and to that end we have established our marae built to last for the next 100+ years and our own kura
Te Wharekura o Manaia.

I met the love of my life at age 20 in a pub in Pakuranga (as so many great love stories often do) an east coast man from Hiruharama marae in Ruatorea.  We have created the greatest team in terms of our Tamariki whose greatest gift to us both has been the birth of our 14 mokopuna (with number 15 due in December 2025).

I currently work at Te Pou and Blueprint under the Wise group as CEO and I am learning so much about workforce development centres and our why.  I guess you could say the role of the CEO is jack of all trades and master of none.  We are like the conductor of the orchestra and I love this type of mahi.  I love learning and I love leading teams particularly when there is a good challenge ahead for us all.

In 1998 I graduated with my bachelor of nursing and have done a number of other papers since that time.  I love being a nurse for many reasons but the stand out reason is that I love to work with people and for people particularly when they are at their most vulnerable point and need support in systems that are often unforgiving and challenging.

Prior to this role I had the privilege of leading Te Aka Whai ora (the Māori Health Authority) during the Pae Ora reforms.  Whilst it was short lived there was much, I learnt about the system and in particular the purpose of policies and strategies and how they affect the things we do on the front line.

With every beautiful smile I see from one of our Tamariki/mokopuna, I am both inspired and reminded that we have a very important job, and that is to prepare our next generation for what is going to be an inevitably ever-changing world and perhaps one that we cannot simply imagine or even  understand.  My greatest teachers and mentors were my nannies.  They were symbols of power, of grace, of beauty and they could rumble with the best of them.  They knew how to do a lot with a little and they never backed down from a fight or a debate.  They would raise funds for every Kaupapa, they would dream up the nirvana for our people and they would demand the very best from this system even at times where just being a woman was a challenge in itself.  They lived through and bore witness to war, recession, depression and oppression and through it all they held us up and made us imagine something different, and better not just for us but for all of us here in Aotearoa.

My advice to our rangatahi, don’t forget to take your people with you, be a good person and that will often create a great leader, be mindful about the here and now but be bold about the future.  You cannot fast forward this life so take the advice you are gifted and go forward and create the world we couldn’t. Finally, our reo, our matauranga, our tikanga, our kawa and our whakapapa are what make us indigenous, but we are human so be a great human in this world and for this world.

My greatest hope for the future is simple, and I go back to our tongikura

E kore tēnei whakaoranga, e huri ki tua o aku mokopuna

Our mokopuna will not inherit the world that we did.