The Lalaga Ōtara Leaders Programme 2025 was a Moana-centred leadership and wellbeing initiative grounded in the Lalaga framework and card game (a weaving approach) that strengthens identity, confidence, and purpose by connecting culture, relationships, and lived experience. The programme supports emerging young leaders by placing their learning across the vā between whānau, school, and community.
Delivered over one intensive week, the programme brought together a carefully selected group of Year 9–10 students from Tangaroa College and Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate. Schools nominated students who would benefit from increased confidence, connection, and cultural grounding, creating a cohort that reflected the depth of talent and potential within Ōtara’s youth community.
This evaluation is grounded in Pacific Data Sovereignty, affirming that the stories and insights shared belong first to our students and their whānau. Knowledge offered through talanoa is relational, co-owned, and held with cultural integrity, protected and returned with care. Research and evaluation for Lalaga is reciprocity, responsibility, and shared meaning-making in a process that honours the vā and aligns with our Lalaga principles.
Within this frame, this report captures the impact of the Lalaga Ōtara Leaders programme by weaving together the voices of rangatahi, whānau, teachers, and mentors. It reflects not only what changed,
but how change was made possible. We invite you to see, hear, and feel the layers of transformation emerging from an abundant landscape of people, connection, and possibility in Ōtara when rangatahi are given space to belong, imagine, and lead.