Catalyse Newsletter

July 2025

Mānawatia a Matariki!

Tēnā koutou katoa

As we gather under the rising stars of Matariki, we pause to reflect on the kaupapa that connects us all: remembrance, celebration, and the promise of new beginnings..

For Catalyse, Matariki is a deeply meaningful time - an invitation to slow down, look inward and outward, and consider the connections that shape our communities.

Each year, we create a special gift as part of this reflection. In 2025, our gift is designed to foster connection and understanding - because we believe that knowing one another deeply is the foundation for lasting change.

Matariki calls us to honour those who have gone before us, celebrate those journeying alongside us now, and look with hope and intention towards those who will follow. This year, we embrace both the national and regional themes that give Matariki its powerful depth and meaning.

Matariki mā Puanga reminds us of the beautiful diversity of iwi across Aotearoa - some marking the Māori New Year with the rise of Matariki, others with Puanga - inviting us to find unity in this diversity.

Matariki ki te Wai, Auckland’s theme for 2025, calls us to reflect on wai - water - as a life-giving force, a spiritual teacher, and a reminder of our shared responsibility to care for te taiao.

You’ll see how this water theme flows through our mahi, especially in flood recovery efforts across Tāmaki Makaurau, where communities are reimagining their relationship with water and building resilience together.

As we pause to notice what we are ready to let go of and what we want to carry forward - old stories, assumptions, or ways of working - we celebrate our ability to manifest change and nurture transformation, just as water nourishes the land.

Through this newsletter, we invite you to join us in reflecting on the people and stories that shape our shared future.

Above all, we invite you to ask yourself: who do you really know in your community? What stories are waiting to be heard? Because connection and understanding are our greatest gifts in navigating complexity and creating equitable, thriving futures.

Ngā mihi nui,

The Catalyse team

Matariki Hunga Nui Remembrance

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Honouring those we have lost, reflecting on legacy and enduring connections

“Whakatōpū ngā whetū o Matariki, kia mahara ki te hunga kua whetūrangitia.”
Gather the stars of Matariki, to remember those who have become stars

He Wā Whakaaro –
A Time to Reflect and Honour Legacy

Over the past six months, we’ve had the absolute pleasure of working alongside an inspiring collective of kuia through Metlifecare Village’s Resident-led Enviro Groups. These wāhine bring intention, energy, and a deep sense of care to their mahi- leading change not just for today, but for those who will come after them.

These kuia embody the idea of legacy, they’re nurturing seeds of transformation that will bloom long after them.

Retirement villages may be final homes, but within them lie vibrant communities rich in wisdom, humour, leadership, and potential. When older residents lead and inspire initiatives, they awaken new meaning and shared purpose. And that, in turn, strengthens the whole village.

Metlifecare’s commitment to uplifting resident leadership enables flourishing in every sense of the word -environmentally, socially, and spiritually.

These kuia, their mahi, and the legacy they are growing together remind us that leadership can bloom at any age- and that the most powerful changes often begin in our own backyards.

Matariki Ahunga Nui Celebrating the Present

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Gathering together to give thanks and recognise community strength and creativity

He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata.
What is the most important thing in the world?
It is people, it is people, it is people.

Relearning how to live with water

This year’s Auckland Matariki festival theme, Matariki ki te Wai, invites us to reflect on our enduring connection with water - as life-giver, taonga, and teacher. In Tāmaki Makaurau, that reflection has never felt more urgent.

Why?
Every time it rains heavily, communities across Tāmaki Makaurau hold their breath.

Since the devastating weather events of 2023, many Aucklanders now live with the knowledge that their homes may flood again — and again. For those in flood-prone housing, the impacts are compounding: damaged homes, displaced whānau, insurance stress, and the persistent anxiety of “what if?”

These events triggered one of the largest land acquisition programmes in our city’s history. Around 1,200 properties have been identified for buy-back under Auckland Council’s Making Space for Water initiative - homes where future flooding isn’t just likely, but potentially fatal.

Catalyse is proud to be working closely with communities across Tāmaki Makaurau on flood recovery planning - listening deeply to their experiences, hopes, and ideas to help shape futures that reflect their needs and We see this as more than a story of managed retreat. It’s a turning point that asks: What do we do with this land now? How might communities lead the way to shape places of resilience, healing, and belonging?

In New York, the Housing Authority is working with tenants to reimagine over 2,000 acres of public land. Through a simple five-step process - Imagine, Partner, Design, Build, Activate - communities are creating dog parks, gardens, and urban forests. These aren’t beautification projects; they’re long-term, community-led responses to structural challenges we also face here: climate disruption, housing inequity, and social disconnection.

In our work we’re seeing communities step up - they want a say in what comes next on land that may no longer hold homes, but could still hold value.

Auckland’s 2025 Matariki theme, Matariki ki te Wai, prompts us to look to the past and future — to acknowledge generations of concreting wetlands, straightening rivers, and building where water naturally flows. We are now being asked to relearn how to live with water.

And in that relearning lies hope. What if flood-prone land became spaces for mahinga kai, native restoration, cultural practice, or simply time together in nature?

What if recovery was not just about retreat, but return? To care. To community. To whenua.

This conversation goes beyond parks, drainage, or housing stock, it goes to the heart of a much bigger question: What does home look like in a changing climate?

Home is more than shelter. It’s memory, whakapapa, identity.

As managed retreat enters our national conversation, we must ask: who decides what’s worth saving, who is protected, and how change is shaped?

Examples from Westport, Kumeū, Australia, and Sweden show us that these decisions are complex — intertwined with culture, economy, connection, and legacy.

In Aotearoa, mātauranga Māori has always offered us a way to live with water — observing, adapting, and planning in ways that are intergenerational, relational, and just.

As we shape the future of these lands, that knowledge must guide us.

Listening to Place:

Community Engagement in Victoria Quarter

Our community-led development and placemaking work begins with listening - not just to people, but to the subtle voice of place.

We walk through laneways and along streets with open eyes, ears, and hearts. What do we see and feel here? Where is life already thriving? What stories are told in the cracks of the pavement, the quiet of a tucked-away bench, or the smell of fresh baking drifting from a side door?

These gentle observations - often whispered rather than shouted - become the foundation of everything that follows. Back at our desks, we return to them, sifting them through the values we carry: respect, aroha, generosity, togetherness, and equity.

This is where our mission takes root: to uncover what matters most to the people of this place - and to help uplift it.

Victoria Quarter South is one of Aotearoa’s most densely populated urban neighbourhoods - a vibrant hub home to thousands of people living in apartment communities along Nelson, Cook, and Union Streets.

Among them are long-term locals, students, families with young children, renters, and owner-occupiers - many deeply invested in the wellbeing of their neighbourhood.

The Victoria Quarter Programme, led by Auckland Council, supports the transformation of this unique inner-city area - strategically located between the central city, Freemans Bay, and Ponsonby.

Catalyse is privileged to be leading the community engagement, placemaking, and capacity-building mahi in this area. Our co-design approach ensures that the voices of those who live here help shape the neighbourhood’s future.

Change, when guided by care and community, can leave a legacy for generations.

He Ara Hōu ki te Ao Wairua:

A New Path for Creative Connection!

There’s a quiet kind of power in projects that begin with listening. When people are invited to shape the spaces they live, play, and walk through, creativity begins to flow. This comes from the ground up: bold, joyful, and deeply rooted in place.

One of the ways we see this spirit in action is through ChalkWalks - creative, community-led placemaking installations that transform everyday spaces into playful, welcoming pathways. These aren’t off-the-shelf designs dropped into neighbourhoods. They are grown from the ground up, shaped by the ideas, stories, and aspirations of local people.

In Manurewa, a group of wāhine came together to co-design a ChalkWalk inspired by their own lived experience - a joyful expression of mana, aroha, and identity placed directly onto the paths their community walks each day.

Through a creative workshop and a practical installation led by Catalyse’s Creative Lead Tauma Lobacheva, local artists learnt how to design and deliver ChalkWalks that reflect the character and soul of each place. With tools, support, and the right conditions, they’re imagining vibrant futures and bringing them to life.

These ChalkWalks are more than temporary art. They’re a testament to what’s possible when people are invited to dream, design, and deliver projects that reflect their community. They spark play and connection. They offer a sense of belonging. They make visible the invisible stories of place.

Matariki Manako Nui

Looking to the Future

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Planting new seeds of hope, resilience, and connection

“Waiho i te toipoto, kaua i te toiroa.”
Let us keep close together, not far apart.

He Rārangi Tāngata: Who do you know, really?

Matariki is a time to pause and look both inward and outward - to reflect on those who came before us, to cherish those around us, and to consider what we’re growing for those who’ll follow.

In te ao Māori, wellbeing isn’t an individual pursuit - it’s collective. It lives in relationships, whakapapa, whenua, and whanaungatanga. Matariki invites us not just to look up at the stars, but across to each other.

Each year, Catalyse creates a Matariki tool to support reflection and connection. In 2025, we’re delighted to gift you He Rārangi Tāngata: Community Connection Bingo - a simple, playful prompt to reflect on the people in our lives and the stories we may be missing.

We’re richer when we truly know one another - not just names and job titles, but lived experiences. The kind that stretch our worldview and anchor us in empathy.

It’s easy to say we support migrants, care about disabled people, or want better for those on low incomes. But policy, prejudice, and public opinion are shaped by how well we actually know the people behind the label.

In Aotearoa today, we face complex challenges - from climate change, housing affordability and the cost of living, to aging, accessibility, and loneliness. These aren’t just technical issues. They’re people problems. And they won’t be solved without deeper connection, cultural humility, and courageous listening.

The growing divide between left and right, urban and rural, advantaged and struggling, makes this all the more urgent. Equity doesn’t come from ideology - it comes from understanding.

So give the game a go. Use it with your team, your whānau, your community group, or as a personal reflection. And play not to win, but to wonder:

Who’s in my circle?
Whose story don’t I know yet?
What might shift if I truly listened?

Our wero this Matariki is to grow deeper understanding. Because, in the face of complexity, connection is our greatest resource.

Working in rhythm with the Maramataka

We’re exploring what it means to work in rhythm with the maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar. Instead of expecting ourselves to operate at full capacity every day, we’re learning to tune into the natural fluctuations in energy that each phase of the moon brings.

We’ve found that Whiro, the new moon phase, is a powerful invitation to pause. Traditionally considered a low-energy time, Whiro is best suited to quiet mahi - planning, reflection, and clearing the decks. Rather than seeing this as unproductive, we see it as essential preparation for what’s to come.

On the other end of the spectrum is Rākaunui, the full moon. This is when energy peaks - an ideal time for creativity, collaboration, public-facing work, and making things happen. By aligning our more demanding tasks with these high-energy days, and using Whiro to slow down and reset, we’re not just working more sustainably - we’re working more strategically.

We’re grateful for the mātauranga Māori that helps guide this approach, and we acknowledge the generous work of knowledge holders and platforms like AllRight.org.nz, which make this wisdom accessible.

In a world that often glorifies constant productivity, this way of working reminds us that rest and rhythm are not luxuries - they’re intelligence in action. And perhaps, if more of us worked in harmony with te taiao (the natural world), we might find better balance, deeper creativity, and more impactful outcomes.