This is the world we made.

Some post-election thoughts.

Where a cluster of election hoardings once stood, continually smashed down and spray painted over, there now stands a sign for a school fair.

The native forest which will host the fair is thriving thanks to kaitiaki in the community. The school's Rainforest Project began in 2004. Council land has been, and continues to be, restored to coastal native rainforest through planting and weed control efforts. The kura students work hand-in-hand with the school’s kaitiaki and other volunteers. Parents, teachers, neighbours, grandparents, people who love the area - all pitch in. Each student plants a native to affirm that this is their whenua and it is their role to protect it.

As they muddy their little hands, those who hope to guide them to live lives of service, kindness, and care watch on. This is their community.

In 2008, four years after this project of reviving this beautiful land began, the students with the help of their kaiako, created a butterfly garden. They have toiled ever since to bring rhopalocera to the valley. They watch the lifecycle of the butterfly from their outdoor classroom, they see the way we grow, evolve and blossom when we are part of community. When we are cared for. When we are looked after.

Two years later in 2010, a vege garden was created. On a sunny bank the community tends to veges and fruit - kai for all who need it. Seedlings are donated. The children weed the garden, grow the kai, harvest, create recipes and fill bellies. What blessings they see they can hold in their hands. What power. The power to feed those around them.

Compost in the garden comes from the community and the worm farm. Worm wee in bottles recycled and dropped by the principals office. Each class has a chicken and the eggs are sold to pay for feed. There are skinks, geko….There is a community effort to harvest water run-off from the creek to try to stop it seeping through the old landfill into the bay.

The tamariki learn the highs and lows of being kaitiaki. Of being guardians of their whenua. Of this place, their home. They share meals together, they celebrate wins together. They learn their place in the world - here, beneath the shelter of a bushland brought back to life.

There are children who will come to this fair for the pony rides, and they will point out a tui or kereru and they will not know the decades of toil that have gone into reviving this place.

And so they shouldn’t.

They should skip and dance and be free and eat cupcakes that leave their faces sticky with icing. They should dig in the sandpit, looking for taonga, they should have sword fight with sticks and take rides on the electric bike that goes around and around the field.

And maybe after they’ve tired themselves out - chasing their friends, begging for a $1 lucky dip, jumping on the jumping castle - they will find their whānau.

And in the shadow of the trees, in the arms of those who love them, they will rest and maybe, they’ll hear the story of this place.

How it was once very different. But they changed it. Together everyone did their part. They did what they could. They tried. They tried so hard.

And this -

This is what they did.

And maybe they will stare at the wildflowers and watch their colours change in the afternoon light, maybe they will see a monarch butterly floating by - and maybe they’ll think: I can make change too.

Maybe they’ll think, yeah, there’s nothing we can’t do.