About

About Us

Te Ora Hou Ōtautahi is a group of people, mostly Māori, committed to the holistic development of young people, their whānau and communities. We are involved in a wide variety of youth and community development initiatives at a local, regional, and national level. Te Ora Hou Ōtautahi is affiliated to Te Ora Hou Aotearoa – a national network of organisations with a similar kaupapa.

Te Ora Hou began in early 1970’s as part of YFC international’s ‘Youth Guidance’ concept aimed at countering the drift of urban and rural Māori and Polynesian young people into gangs, homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction and violence that was becoming prevalent as a result of the social upheaval of the 1970’s and 1980’s. It was initially a simple gospel response to the key issues of the times.

Te Ora Hou Ōtautahi started in Christchurch in 1983 in Papanui as part of YFC running simple activity based mentoring programmes. It quickly grew to include Boys and Girls clubs in Shirley, Aranui, Hillmorton and Hornby. In 1995, Te Ora Hou Aotearoa became an autonomous national Māori organisation and in 1997, Te Ora Hou Ōtautahi became an Incorporated Society. This was in response to the need for Māori leadership and culturally appropriate practice. Today, Te Ora Hou Ōtautahi continues strong links with local whānau, community and church groups, as well as forming new relationships and contracts with local government, Iwi providers, Pacific Island groups and central government.

Te Ora Hou employs a strengths-based approach. This means we prefer to focus on developing and encouraging the inherent strengths in the young person as opposed to focusing solely on “what’s going wrong”. We support best practice including adhering to the YDSA and Positive Youth Development.

For more on our history, click here.

To read our vision, mission statement and values, click here.

To read more on how we do what we do, check out our Model of Practice (TOHATOHA) here.