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He Oranga Poutama was started by a group of Government agencies, led by Te Puni Kokiri, in 1995. The inter-sectoral group was known as Omangia Te Oma Roa (Run the Long Journey/Participate for Life) and was formed to investigate ways that agencies (including the Hillary Commission) could jointly pool their resources (financial, human, policy, knowledge) to promote healthy lifestyles for Maori through sport and physical activity.
The group resourced the establishment of He Oranga Poutama as a “joint venture project designed to establish Kaiwhakahaere (Coordinators) in selected regions in New Zealand, with the task of promoting health messages and employment opportunities through the medium of sport and physical leisure.” Funding from the various agencies contributed to the funding of 5 Kaiwhakahaere positions in selected regions.
He Oranga Poutama was originally a healthy lifestyle programme for achieving well-being through sport and active leisure. It was based on the premise that sport is an important positive area of society where Maori are already well-represented and have high levels of achievement/ Thus, this positive association with sport and recreation was seen as a springboard for addressing and improving a variety of health and social outcomes for Maori.
The Hillary Commission later decided to establish a stand-alone He Oranga Poutama that focused entirely on physical activity, as it was considered the other messages (Auahi Kore and Manaaki Tangata, etc) were defusing the primary message of promoting physical activity. The Hillary Commission at the same time wanted to strategically align He Orqanga Poutama with Push Play.
He Oranga Poutama has now been operating for almost 10years. For its first 3 years, He Oranga Poutama was a pilot, and evaluations were conducted annually by independent researchers during that period. In 2001, a satisfaction survey was conducted, as well as a follow up effectiveness audit by Te Puni Kokiri (which was financially focused on monitoring additional funding which was put into the programme from GAPS funding in 2000, to add an additional 10 kaiwhakahaere positions in other regions).
Over the years, participation by various agencies changed; governance of the initiative changed and sport sector agencies were restructured. The Hillary Commission for instance, one of the origination agencies, was disestablishes in 2001 and merged with others to form Sport and Recreation NZ (SPARC) in 2002.
Today, He Oranga Poutama is currently contracted in 17 organizations – 11 Regional Sports Trusts (RSTs) and six iwi organizations and delivered by 26 Kaiwhakahaere. SPARC spends some $1.7m per annum on the programmes nationally.
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