Te Rau Oranga Fund

Donations to Te Rau Oranga Fund help increase the number of Maaori working in the health sector via scholarships to students committed to a health career.

Te Rau Oranga Fund was established by Waikato Hospital doctors Ruth Tan (Ngaati Hangarau and Ngaati Mutunga) and Stephen Ng, along with their colleagues and families.

Their ultimate goal is to improve health outcomes for Maaori in the Waikato, and they believe one of the ways this can be done is by increasing the number of Maaori working in the health system.

The Fund achieves this by providing scholarships, career promotion and mentoring to students, initially at Te Kura Tuarua o Taniwharau-Fraser High School in Hamilton and eventually at other local secondary schools in the Waikato.

“Te Rau Ora has a few meanings, ’ora’ is ‘health and wellness’, ‘rau’ can be ‘many’ or ‘leaf’,” says Ruth.

“The title has been gifted to us by Matua Paora, a long-serving kaiako at Fraser, who says it to mean both ‘health for the many’ and ‘a tree with many leaves of opportunity’.

“You don’t see many Maaori in the workforce here at the Hospital, we are few and far between, and that is a barrier.”

“We want to provide students with a ‘visual aid’ of what they can become, that they can choose a health career if they want to, to know it’s an achievable goal.”

“Te Rau Oranga Fund is intended to be a ‘by Maaori, for Maaori’ initiative. Our scholarships and outreach will provide opportunities for students who may not otherwise have had them, and empower them to choose any career in the health sector.”

“There are very small numbers of Maaori in the health workforce and by increasing the number of Maaori healthcare practitioners we can improve the health of Maaori, by delivering care that is tailored to our people.

“Also, the health sector has chronic staff shortages, so increasing the number of Maaori in the workforce will not only help its diversity but also the overall number of practitioners,” says Ruth.