What is Parihaka Waka Ama Incorporated?
We started with a group of parents and hockey players. We wanted to nurture whanau, we wanted an environment that all people were of valued and in any small way wanted to make a difference.
Hockey had a person that wanted to paddle, who had a few friends, each friend had a workmate, and everyone had whanau... lots of whanau.
Waka ama ran a business house race and as each friend found more workmates, who had friends, who had whanau... lots of whanau. We have held a business house regatta for the last three years.
A lot of us work for either health or are linked with communty organisations that are there to assist whanau in need. We approached 155 Community Trust to request a loan of their waka, under our kaupapa of giving to community we fitted their kaupapa. Then we were coaching community work groups for fun, for team bonding, for work challenges. Along with these people came another whanau who had a friend, who had a workmate.
From these people we had a small group that thought they may want another challenge and they trained to compete in their first ever race the Tauranga WakaFest in April 2008 long distance of 26km. From this point we haven't looked back.
We formed PARIHAKA SPORTS CLUB INC (PSC) to continue the kaupapa of nuturing whanau, to create an environment of learning and be able to teach the wonderful culture of wakaama. Strengthened by a few paddlers with a bit of experience and a lot of passion. In 2014, PARIHAKA WAKA AMA CLUB INC (PWA) was formed in tandem with PSC to manage the wakaama code.
Since April 2014 PWA have been building our base of paddlers, steerer's, supporters and are still committed to doing just that.