default-output-block.skip-main
National

Innovative digital program raising Māori and Pacific cultural awareness

Mana Moana is an innovative new program aimed at raising the awareness of Māori and Pacific cultures among hard-to-reach, desk-less workers.

Indigenous design expert company Brown Pages has co-created Mana Moana with vibe.fyi, a communication delivery platform, and it says scaling cultural competency using disruptive technology is a New Zealand first.

The Warehouse Group is among its first customers, and is taking advantage of a special being offered during Matariki. Brown Pages chief executive Iulia Leilua talked to Tapatahi about Mana Moana.

“I think a lot of organisations want to develop these kinds of initiatives but they don't know how.” Leilua says.

Brown Pages designs cultural content and then, using vibe.fyi’s platforms, pushes that content out to workers using screens, mobile phones, and screensavers. That goes right out to places like the factory floor or distribution centres, right up to corporate areas.

"When an organisation signs up, Brown Pages sits down with its people to look at the content that they want to deliver to their workforce as each organisation is different. We did that with The Warehouse Group," Leilua says.

Vibe uses their platforms to go into the digital workplace to look at how to deploy engaging content.

"We use animation and it's also about snackable learning because this is content that's delivered over a whole year. And people will get to see it at least seven times a day."

“It's about embedding cultural knowledge.”

Mana Moana is seamlessly integrated into the workplace through vibe.fyi's platforms. It's also integrated through different curriculums developed by Brown Pages. 

"So my challenge is for other organisations to join up, it's ready to be deployed, it's powerful and we'd love to work with people. Just coming off the back of Matthew Tukaki's interview on Tapatahi [about ACC which has been found to have a bias against Māori] this type of use of technology is very powerful for disrupting systemic racism." Leilua says.