Please help us send our children from our remote town of Murupara on an amazing school, including a Parliamentarian trip to the Beehive!
Bay of Plenty
Kohutapu Lodge and Stray New Zeland offer a new style cultural and community tourism product in the Murupara region, an area that suffers from significant poverty. We refer to it as “Real Life Tourism”. Stray New Zealand brings international visitors into the beautiful region that Murupara is located in, to stay with a modern day Maori family on the edge of a lake and experience first-hand the history, land, stories, food and some of the realities we face today – but most importantly – they see firsthand the hope for a very bright future, which lies with our children.
The community and social responsibility arms of these companies sees hangi meals delivered for free into the local schools every week for those children who don’t get lunch, and to the elders of the tribe on weekends and school holidays. The international visitors contribution also helps restore historic sites, and the visitors also participate in school visits.
The international guests are teaching our children from Murupara that the world is bigger than Murupara….and we do that by taking the world into their classrooms. The kids provide a cultural performance, and spend time interacting with the visitors – discovering new countries, cultures, food, geography, career choices and ways of life around the world. The only cost to Stray and us is our time.
What started off as a simple plan has turned into an unbelievable social surprise. The kids from Murupara have really developed. Before many were despondent, dis-engaged, and shy. Many of them now speak of travelling to places like England, Germany, America, China and the shift in their career aspirations is overwhelming – pilots, graphic designers, engineers – they now believe they can do anything!!! They are hugely proud of their place, and of their culture. They know what it means to be Kiwi. Many of their goals before were unknown, and with this added we know they will one day aspire for great things – perhaps to even run the forests and most importantly – to become leaders within their tribe.
Stray New Zealand, have now offered these kids an opportunity of a life time. A 5 day trip around New Zealand, including bush lodge stays, eco safaris, conservation encounters, a big City visit to Wellington – including a parliamentarian trip to the Beehive, Te Papa and even Weta Productions – just to name a few of the experiences that will be jam packed into this life changing 5 days. Stray New Zealand, Blue Duck Station, Base + Nomads group have come on board to cover the costs of this trip that these kids would otherwise not have a chance to do.
We now only need to come up with the last bit of funding to cover the costs of meals for the children across the 5 day trip.
We believe every child should have the chance to experience the wonders that our own country offers, to enjoy learning experiences outside of the classroom, to be inspired and to go onto to do great things – like be a Prime Minister!
If you could help in anyway be would be so appreciative!
We are involved because we are a tourism company that supports our local community. We deliver free hangi meals into our local schools each week, our visitors help contribute to our region and assist with helping restore historic sites. We also undertake planned school visits with our international visitors, so our children from our remote town are able to learn about the world - different countries, cultures, ways of life, career choices - from people they would not have otherwise had the chance to meet. Although our town has limited employment opportunities and an extremely low socio economic base, we believe our amazing children deserve the opportunity to experience an educational and inspiring trip outside of their classroom environment, that they may otherwise not had the opportunity to have.
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