Dear Moko

Ko Parengarenga te moana, Parengarenga is my ocean. Ko Tawhitirahi te maunga, Tawhitirahi is my mountain. Ko Awapoka te awa, Awapoka is my river. Ko Kurahaupo te waka, Kurahaupo is my ancestral canoe. Ko Potahi raua ko Te Reo Mihi oku marae, Potahi and Te Reo Mihi are my traditional meeting places. Ko Te Aupouri, ko Ngati Kurī, ko Te Rarawa, ko Ngapuhi nui tonu oku iwi, My tribes are Te Aupouri, Ngati Kurī, Te Rarawa and Ngapuhi. Ko Hinemoa taku ingoa, my name is Hinemoa.

Dr Hinemoa Elder is of Ngati Kurī, Te Rarawa, Te Aupouri and Ngapuhi descent and the mother of two adult children. She has lived on Te Motu Arai Roa, Waiheke Island for more than 20 years, and is the author of New Zealand’s best-selling local non-fiction book of 2021, Aroha - Maori Wisdom for a Contented Life Lived in Harmony with Our Planet. She is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who works at Starship Hospital’s Child & Family and Mother & Baby Units and various community clinics. Hinemoa also provides youth forensic court reports and neuropsychiatric assessment and treatment of traumatic brain injury in private practice. She is a deputy psychiatry member of the New Zealand Mental Health Review Tribunal. In 2019, Hinemoa was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to psychiatry and Maori.