Meet founder Rose Daamen
Kia hora te marino. Kia whakapapa pounamu te moana. Hei huarahi mā tātou i te rangi nei. Aroha atu, aroha mai, tātou i ā tātou katoa. Hui e, tāiki e!
Ko Ruahine rāua ko Tararua ngā pae maunga e kōrero ana ki tōku ngākau, e tū ana i runga ake i tōku kainga, te wāhi kua hīkoi haere taku whānau i ngā wā katoa.
Ko Manawatū te awa e whakamāmā nei i aku māharahara, e hono ana ahau ki ōku tūpuna, te awa kaha e rere ana ki te moana i Te Awahou, te wāhi i ū tuatahi ai ōku tūpuna i te taha o tōku Māmā ki Aotearoa.
Ko Himatangi te takutai moana e tomo nei taku tino maumaharatanga o te whanaungatanga.
Nō te rohe o Manawatū ahau. Ko Papaioea te whenua tupu. Nō Hokowhitu, e pātata atu ana ki te awa o Manawatū, kei te wāhi i tū ai tō mātou kāinga, i whānau mai ahau i reira.
Nō Ingarangi me Hōrana ōku tūpuna. I tae mai rātou ki Aotearoa: i te paunga o te tekau tau kotahi mano, e waru rau, e iwa tekau (1890), ki Te Awahou; ki muri i te Pakanga Tuatahi o Te Ao, ki Petone me Huetepara (Te Whanganui-a-Tara); ā, ki muri i te Pakanga Tuarua o Te Ao, ki Motueka (Whakatū) me Ōhikaparuparu (Ōtautahi), te wāhi i noho ai ōku whānau i te taha o tōku Pāpā.
I tupu ake au i Papaioea, engari, i noho au me tōku whānau iti ki Whangārei, i Taitokerau, mō ngā tau e rua tekau ma tahi, i te wā o te tamarikitanga o aku tamariki. E mōhio ana au ki ngā tohu nui me ngā kōrero tuku iho o tēnei rohe, ā, e mihi ana hoki au ki ngā tāngata whenua o tēnei wāhi ātaahua.
Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
Translation
May peace be widespread. May the sea be like greenstone. A pathway for us all this day. Let us show respect for each other, for one another. Bind us together!
Ruahine and Tararua are the mountain ranges that stir my heart, standing tall above my home, where my family has wandered time and again.
Manawatū is the river that eases my worries, connecting me to my ancestors, the powerful river that flows to the sea at Foxton, where my ancestors on my mother’s side first landed in Aotearoa.
Himatangi is the coastline that holds my deepest memories of family and kinship.
I am from the Manawatū region. Palmerston North is where I grew up. Hokowhitu, close to the Manawatū river, was where our home was, and is the place where I was born.
My ancestors are from England and Holland. They arrived in Aotearoa: in the late 1890s, settling at Foxton; after World War One at Petone and Lyall Bay (Wellington); and, after World War Two at Motueka (Nelson) and Sumner (Christchurch), the place where my family on my father’s side lived.
While I was raised in Palmerston North, my immediate family and I have lived in Whangārei, Taitokerau, for the last twenty-one years, while my children grew up. I recognise this region's significant landmarks and traditional histories, and acknowledge the indigenous people of this beautiful area.
Greetings to you all.
Rose brings a wealth of experience to our research consultancy. With a background in anthropology, archaeology, and environmental sciences from Auckland and Otago universities, Rose’s career began as an archaeologist working alongside tangata whenua at Waipoua Forest in Taitokerau, and on the Pililo Islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea.
Her passion for human rights and social justice then led her to turn a short-term contract for the Waitangi Tribunal into 30 years of dedicated multidisciplinary evidential research, analysis, quality assessment, facilitation and report writing. Over that time, Rose examined a broad spectrum of historical and contemporary Treaty issues, gaining valuable insights into Māori culture and experiences, and legal frameworks, policy and practice, within Aotearoa. She also took papers in law at Victoria university.
In recent years, Rose has expanded her work, actively seeking to include future-focused research promoting socially and environmentally sustainable outcomes reflecting and building on her former work. She authored He Tohu Whakatupu, exploring the challenges of contemporary Māori land use as experienced by those participating in a Māori forestry company initiated in the 1980s, and has provided expert evidence for High Court MACA (Takutai Moana) Act applicants seeking acknowledgement of their cultural relationship with, and rights and responsibilities within, their rohe. She is a student of te reo Māori at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.
For more details on Rose’s research experience and expertise, please reach out to Tuatinitini.
