Keep Te Kāhui Flying

Te Kahui Creative Writing is a by-rangatahi-for-rangatahi kaupapa that equips the next generation of Aotearoa’s storytellers with the skills, space and support to realise their creative voice. Currently, it is the only Arts in Corrections program offered across the country that aims explicitly to work with rangatahi in adult Corrections facilities. 

Te Kāhui has not been immune to the increased precariousness of creative sector funding that continues to grind down not-for-profit organisations across this government’s term. While we have all taken pay cuts and scaled down our programming to mitigate the impact of this funding climate on our kaupapa, we need community support to do justice for the work we do for rangatahi in Corrections.

Since its conception in 2019, Te Kāhui Creative Writing has focused on bringing art to places where art is not so easily accessible. We create dynamic and specialised creative writing workshops and creative writing booklets tailored to participants' curiosity and learning needs. Presented with the Arts Access Corrections Maaui Tikitiki a Taranga Award, Highly Commended in 2021, Te Kāhui remains at the forefront of service and excellence in the Corrections space.

Over the past 5 years, Te Kahui has grown to collaborate with 14 of the 18 correctional facilities, providing a mix of in-person and/or remote art programming.

The current creatives championing this kaupapa are: 

Ruby Macomber - Te Kāhui Co-Manager:

Ruby Macomber (Rotuma/Ngāpuhi) is the 2025 curator of STREETSIDE for Auckland Writers Festival 2025 and former New Zealand Young Writers Festival curator. Her poetry film, Cry Sis, was featured in Mana Moana: Pasifika Voices and at COP28. Her work features across local, national, and international print and digital media. My Moana Girls, her debut chapbook, was published by ngā pukapuka pekapeka in 2024. 

Ruby’s current creative mahi in poetry, facilitation, editing and teaching amplifies Māori and Moana experiences of identity, reclamation, grief and joy. Abolition and Indigenous liberation inform her intention within, and passion for, creative equity, resulting in the interweaving of story sovereignty into community section 27 reports, research, church Te Tiriti workshops and parliamentary submissions. Within Te Kāhui, she leads from lived experience and with Te Tiriti at the centre. 

Sherry Zhang - Te Kāhui Co-Manager:

Sherry Zhang (Fujian, China) is a creative with a background in theatre, journalism and creative writing. She was born and raised in Tāmaki Makaurau and was previously the editor of the Pantograph Punch. This included setting an editorial agenda focused on intersectional discourse, decolonial activism, and art criticism from underrepresented communities. She has experience writing for rangatahi; her co-written play Yang/Young/杨 was staged for high school students at the Basement Theatre, exploring sexuality, culture, and mother-daughter dynamics through humour and spoken-word.

She is invested in advocating for access to the creative arts, Te Tiriti-informed workshops and restorative justice practices with Te Kāhui. As tauiwi, she consistently interrogates her relationships to this whenua and what it means to stand in solidarity with Tino Rangatiratanga. Alongside this mahi, she is working on her Foundation North-funded genre-hybrid writing project, drawing on her experience of growing up in her parents’ coffee shop, 

Eric Soakai - Te Kāhui Facilitation Lead: 

Eric Soakai is a Samoan (Falealili) Tongan (Ha’apai) creative from South Auckland, New Zealand. His creative practice has focused on examining Moana-based cosmogonies as a (re)centred foundation for storytelling and poetry facilitation as a form of community strengthening.

Since winning the New Zealand National Poetry Slam in 2019, Eric has focused on understanding the poetics embedded within Moana-based art and philosophy. This has taken the shape of attending international Indigenous storytelling residences in Banff, Canada and Apia, Samoa; creating artwork informed by Tā-Vā (Time-Space) Philosophy of Reality as part of the Kava Book Club’s ‘Inasi: First Fruits Art Exhibition and publishing works with various universities. 

Understanding the necessity of community strengthening as a vital creative practice to a sustainable arts economy, Eric has also spent the last 3 years working for Action Education, a Youth Development organisation that uses Spoken Word Poetry to support rangatahi.

These various arts endeavours have helped Eric understand the importance of relationality to Moana-based cultures—relating to knowledge of whenua, is learning about each other. Transformative community work only occurs when we consistently upskill while remaining embedded in the communities we wish to serve. 

Phodiso Dintwe - Te Kāhui Remote Booklet and Creative Strategy Lead:

Phodiso Moeng Dintwe (Botswana) has a decade of experience in community work, primarily in performing arts and writing. He has led cross-disciplinary workshops in Aotearoa, the UK, the US, Malaysia, Botswana, Lesotho, and South Africa, working with participants aged 5-75. Currently, he is producing and co-writing a music project for a 17-year-old singer-songwriter while mentoring a young adult in developing a poetry collection — alongside his music projects.  

At Te Kāhui, Phodiso applies these skills in deeply meaningful ways. Having friends and family who have been through the corrections system in his home country, he understands firsthand the vital role that poetry, music, and theatre play in well-being and personal growth.  

He is committed to ensuring those from underserved backgrounds have access to spaces, pathways, and knowledge that connect them to their creative passions and provide a means for self-expression. Coming from a lower socio-economic background, financial barriers once prevented him from learning an instrument and understanding how to achieve an arts career. He is driven to make creative opportunities more accessible to others who face similar struggles.

Te Kāhui has held creative workshops for over 750 rangatahi and tangata whaiora across the motu. Our momentum is strong. We saw eleven times more participants in the 2024-2025 year compared to our previous financial year. Our dedicated team have facilitated ten times more workshops in this period.  Just as our flame is shining the brightest, difficult financial realities loom on our doorstep. We have chosen to take a pay cut and scale down operations slightly in hopes of weathering this storm.

Scaling down our programme affects our ability to reach sites outside Tāmaki Makaurau. It also means our tīma are completing funding applications, reports and other tasks adjacent to in-person programming on insufficient hours.

With your help, we hope to: 

• Return to sites such as Springhill Prison, Tongariro Prison, Christchurch Women’s Prison and Rolleston Prison—requiring time for planning, programme design, co-design, and travel. 
• Respond to the call from our participants at Auckland Women’s Prison for longer, more in-depth creative writing courses. 
• Expand our capacity for remote booklet programming, including the printing of booklets 4, 5, & 6, our second series of remote booklets, that have been requested by sites across the country. This contributes to the accessibility of creative expression. 
• Continue to provide the resources required for in-person programming at every workshop

Hitting our $5,000 goal would support our regular programming and our capacity to return to at least one other site semi-regularly. 

With our stretch goal of $7,500, we will be supported to return to at least two other sites, develop our existing programming, and publish advanced creative writing booklets for our rangatahi participants. 

Tangibly, a workshop at a site outside Tāmaki Makaurau can cost anywhere from $600 to $2000 when facilitator fees, travel, programme design and reporting are accounted for. Our team gratefully accept any donations towards these initiatives. 

In 2019, our kaupapa arose from a clear call for accessible arts programming at Mount Eden Corrections Facility. In 2020, we developed a booklet programme to meet the need for remote delivery during COVID-19. Our mahi has since expanded to serve communities facing physical disability, cultural disconnection, and systemic vulnerability across the country. It has also developed in medium, incorporating rap and editing. In each case, adaptations reflect specific requests from rangatahi. 

All Te Kāhui creative programmes are designed with the understanding that rangatahi story sovereignty, narrative agency and empowerment are fundamental to mana motuhake. These values are woven throughout all components of our programming, including:

• Community consultation – before any workshop, mentorship or community engagement, Te Kāhui tīma meet with rangatahi and their broader community, ascertaining what passions, projects or skills ngā rangatahi wish to explore;
• Indigenous programme design and facilitation – Te Kāhui creative programming conceptually explores atua Māori, Indigenous wayfinding, pūrākau Māori, contemporary BIPOC realities, and diverse artistic mediums, all whilst enabling conversations around story sovereignty and the need for rangatahi to be active agents of their own truths.
• Creative expression workshops – tailored to the specific needs of ngā rangatahi – including (but not limited to): term-long creative development wānanga; 3-weekly creative writing sessions; 3-day Indigenous creative intensives;
• Creative mentorship – ngā rangatahi looking to upskill in their creative medium are supported over a 3 or 6-month period by a Te Kāhui creative writing facilitator;
• Publication opportunities – ngā rangatahi who wish to share their kupu may be involved in curating a poetry chapbook or anthology, such as Taiohi Inside (2023) or Wāhine Inside (forthcoming 2025);

Despite scaling down, we still facilitate weekly in-person workshops in Tāmaki Makaurau, at Auckland Region Women's Corrections Facility in Wiri & Mount Eden Correctional Facility. We provide remote feedback and mentorship through our booklet programme at those sites, along with at least 6 other correctional facilities across the motu. We are also working with Christchurch Women’s Prison on an upcoming anthology of creative writing, to be published with 5ever books at the end of 2025. However, the hours required to execute this mahi are currently stretched by our current funding, and we need additional support. 

In a political climate that pervasively undervalues creative expression and indigenous expressions of identity and community, Te Kāhui works to ensure that rangatahi who are already systemically barred from creative expression have access to realise their creative voice. We have deep relationships with the communities Te Kāhui stands to serve. Our rangatahi deserve a space for their stories to be heard, celebrated and valued.

As of July 2025, there are no more Corrections-funded arts programmes in the country. All external facilitators serving incarcerated creatives are sourcing funding from highly-competitive contestable grants, ad hoc community grants, private philanthropic foundations or are completely voluntary. 

 Our focus is to help rangatahi identify and attain the necessary tools for their creative development. The resources we provide are tailored to the participants' respective journeys. We believe that access to safe forums for self-expression is essential for rangatahi hauora. In championing this accessibility, our kaupapa hopes to combat the anxiety and isolation young creatives may experience in the absence of reliably supportive spaces for exploring their self-expression and well-being.

Te Kāhui sees restorative justice, story sovereignty, and culturally-nuanced creative opportunities for rangatahi as a necessary step towards community-focused healing and change. Your support in this is immensely appreciated.