Anne Marie Maikuku, Strategic Lead for Oral Health at Clare recently travelled to Vancouver to attend the World Health Indigenous Conference ‘Healing Our Spirits’, along with 4,000 other representatives from around the globe, with Aotearoa well represented by380 registered participants.
The ninth gathering provided a platform to explore holistic approaches to health and wellbeing from an indigenous world view.
The gathering upheld the rights to indigenous healing journeys and spanned a multitude of topics including health governance, cultural supports, programme development and implementation, prevention and education, mental health and research.
Anne Marie noted that “understanding the nuances of upholding kaupapa māori helps to identify and articulate the markers to maintain the integrity of kaupapa, on the premise of thinking, knowing, doing and being māori.
“The opportunity to realign the power imbalance with western health models was discussed through matauranga māori leading the way for indigenous around the world.”