The Tihei Rangatahi Research Programme: tailoring a community-based youth empowerment programme for rangatahi Māori

Abstract

Empowering Indigenous youth in their communities and within their own social-cultural contexts is an essential approach to developing their capacity as community advocators. We adapted an established youth empowerment programme for use among 51 Indigenous New Zealand youth. The key learnings of the programme reported: (a) youth highly rated their understanding and confidence across various social-health contexts based on the programmes’ stance of developing the youths’ knowledge and social change in understanding their own health and well-being as community catalysts; and (b) incorporating Māori (Indigenous people of New Zealand) worldview to their understandings of mental wellness was important because it enabled youth to understand mental health issues in a culturally relevant and safe way, this was positively compounded by having a strong identity as Māori. This study adds to a small body of literature on the use of empowerment programmes for improving the health and well-being of Indigenous youth.