Introduction
Tama-nui-te-Rā (the sun) represents your wellbeing or your health both inside and outside your body. Using the idea that the sun feeds and strengthens our wellbeing, Whiti te Rā as an image of the sun, is a model that shows you how you can be strong when things are hard.
Whiti te Rā draws its energy from Te Ao Māori (the Māori world). The model uses pūrakau (stories) and kōrero from our tūpuna to help guide you and to help you remember so that you can also draw energy from Whiti te Rā.
There are six pathways (hihi/sunbeams) in Whiti te Rā to choose from. You can see that each hihi can burn bright like the sun in summer, or cold like the sun in winter or on a cloudy day. When your hihi are bright and sunny, you’re getting stronger and stronger.
How do you make the hihi burn bright and sunny? The more activities you do, the more you learn, and the stronger you become. Being active is what we call hono. Sometimes it is hard to feel hono because we might be too tired, too hōhā, or maybe too busy, or we might be a bit mataku (or scared). Feeling ok about how much you know about different parts of Te Ao Māori (the Māori world) in Whiti te Rā is called mahuru.
- Hono means that we are doing, practicing, and using our different skills. Even if we feel a bit mataku or scared or not sure why it’s important. The more you do, the more comfortable you’ll feel. It gets easier.
- Mahuru means we’ve learnt things and are comfortable in our knowledge. We’re able to set new goals for what we’d like to learn more about, and we know who can guide us.
Whiti te Rā has six hihi. Tap on each hihi to open up that pathway to wellbeing. For more information about the Whiti te rā model, (link):
Each hihi has:
- A whakamārama – a description of the hihi
- A whakataukī – a proverbial saying that links this hihi with tūpuna knowledge
- Ngā hua – a list of the benefits of each hihi
- Ngā ara – pathways in the form of a list of activities, resources, and links to see, learn, and try out different parts of each hihi.
