About 16 Ōpōtiki children per day have been enjoying a free school holiday programme over the past two weeks thanks to the efforts of a former teacher.

Over the July holidays, Ōpōtiki Rangatahi Pa has been running a programme of Matariki-based activities five days a week at the Māori Presbyterian Church in King Street.

When the Ōpōtiki News caught up with them on Monday they were weaving manu tukutuku, traditional Māori kites, from toetoe and donated wool.

One of the activities last week was making wishes for Hiwa i te Rangi, the Matariki wishing star.

“We made these stars and we put our wishes in them,” said Rangatahi Pa member Ngapoti Mamaku.

Mamaku was enjoying the task, despite having been up since 6am to view the Matariki stars with her parents.

“I saw six of them until my mum took a photo and I could see all of them. Matariki is pretty cool.”

They were also visiting Ōpōtiki New World this week to decorate cupcakes and had been to the skatepark to work on their skateboarding and scootering skills.

Rangatahi Pa is an initiative of former Ōpōtiki College teacher Alex Le Long, who developed the youth group in July 2024.

“Some of our young people are really talented at drawing. Some are really talented at skateboarding and scootering. So we’ve had a whole range of different activities. ”

Throughout the year, Rangitahi Pa has an after school group that meets every Wednesday and the group produces its own podcast every Tuesday afternoon at Te Tāhuhu o Te Rangi – Ōpōtiki Library.

Rangatahi Pa first started at Ōpōtiki District Council facility, Rose Garden Cottage, at Rawinia Rangi Reserve, but moved to the Māori Presbyterian Church in King Street when more space was needed.

“We also needed a space to keep all of our resources and the Māori Presbyterian Church has been very helpful letting us use one of their back rooms and the attic,” Le Long said.

They have even allowed Rangatahi Pa to create a community garden on the church grounds.

“We’re about to start some other programmes. We’ve got a local carver, Whetu Walker, who wants to teach our young people how to carve.”

Another initiative Le Long set up out of Rangatahi Pa is a micro-publishing company called New Horizons Press.

“One of the things I found as a teacher was that there was not enough space for young people to share stories relevantly with a really clear audience. Film Bay of Plenty recently awarded the group free entry into the Vista Foundation 48hr Film competition.

“We’ve got our own recording gear for our podcasting and for the documentary we are working on.

“There’s not many options for our young people here in Ōpōtiki. We just provide the space, to do the fun things and the kids get to be themselves. It’s been pretty cool. It’s mainly whanau led and based off the generosity of our community.”

While the children all agreed the programme was lots of fun, Le Long said lack of funding was an issue. The programme was entirely reliant on Le Long’s unpaid efforts, assistance from the children’s families and community and local business donations, often topped up out of “koha” from Le Long’s own pocket.

“One of our biggest challenges is that we don’t have our own permanent base. The second biggest is that we don’t have enough transport. The hardest is that we don’t have enough funding to pay for all the things we want to do.”