These brand new mid-year NPM internships have been designed to support tauira and enhance research outcomes in these uncertain times. The internships require senior or mid-career researchers and students to work together to design an internship which will have relevance to Māori in the face of a fast changing and challenging Covid-19 environment.

In order to access these internships NPM Investigators and Researchers must conceive of and outline a project and connect with a student that they want to work with, submitting all details in  one application. And so;

Part of NPM’s Tautoko strategy given COVID-19 impact is to support 40 tauira (students) to complete their theses and degree requirements. A suite of new NPM completion scholarships are now open for Māori students across Aotearoa New Zealand. These scholarships provide opportunities and support for Honours, Masters and Doctoral students to complete their studies in 2020.

Applications for these scholarships are open and close 16 June 2020. Selections will take place in the final two weeks of June and all scholarships start from July 1.

Māori researchers from across the country have been making considerable contributions to current national discussions around the response to Covid-19 and what the future holds. Just a few of these contributions are as follows:

As part of our Tautoko Strategy, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga is committed to ensuring that our researchers have a platform for communicating their expertise and insights into Covid-19 and the wider implications it may have on whānau and Indigenous communities.
 

NPM has been publishing multiple video logs from our network of researchers, as they share with and support our communities with important messages for the conditions and impact of the Covid-19 era we find ourselves in. Our primary goal is to bring Indigenous knowledge, science, evidence and resources to the task of supporting advisors, decision-makers, iwi, our communities and whānau.

NPM researcher and University of Auckland Law Associate Professor Dr Claire Charters (Ngāti Whakaue, Tūwharetoa, Ngāpuhi and Tainui) laid out Aotearoa’s dual legal systems and the government’s obligations to both in these uncertain times, in a recently published op-ed piece in The Spinoff.

Read --> Dr Claire Charter's opinion piece in The Spinoff. The Covid-19 era is like a fast-moving picture which perpetually develops and re-develops. The picture adjusts with ever-changing information on the relevant health-science, the impact on the economy, the need for restrictions on movement, and the openness of our borders into the future. Where does our rock, New Zealand’s constitutional foundation, te Tiriti o Waitangi fit in all of this? Right in the centre, together with He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Law professor Dr Claire Charters (Ngati Whakaue, Tuwharetoa, Nga Puhi and Tainui) lays out Aotearoa’s dual legal systems and the government’s obligations to both in these uncertain times.

Who has the authority to make decisions, especially in times of emergency? Our elected representatives and their officials assume it’s them, writes Kerensa Johnston, but the further you get from Lambton Quay and the so-called corridors of power, the less this holds true.  Read Kerensa's full article in E-Tangata.

Kerensa Johnston (Ngāti Tama, Ngāruahine and Ngāti Whāwhakia) is the chief executive of Wakatū Incorporation, based in Nelson. She has a commercial and legal background, specialising in Māori legal development, constitutional law and international law. Kerensa is the chair of the board of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, the Māori Centre of Research Excellence and a member of the International Association of Corporate Counsel, Corporate Lawyers’ New Zealand, and Te Hunga Roia, the Māori Law Society.

Read --> A situation report from Dr Vanessa Lee (Yupungathi and Meriam Nation) of the University of Sydney raising concern about the increased police presence within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities during the COVID19 crisis.

Associate Professor Krushil Watene (Ngāti Manu, Te Hikutu, Ngāti Whātua o Orākei, Tonga) specialises in moral and political philosophies of well-being, development, and justice with a particular focus on indigenous philosophies. In her piece in "The Conversation", Krushil reflects on the fact that "our well-being is intimately connected to other people and our natural environment". Maori and Indigenous peoples around the globe have long known this. Once beyond our present constraints "...we can’t afford to stop caring about collective well-being.