After a tough few years for the region, Project Tipu was created to help communities improve resilience and connectedness through kai sovereignty.

Partnering with schools, Marae, charities, local businesses and healthcare organisations, we support the building of on-site garden beds and composting systems. By providing resources to grow kai, our community can build resilience through the growing of nourishing, local, and continuously available food.

Thank you to Lotteries for supporting this project.

Tu Taiao Tairāwhiti is a community-led backyard trapping project helping bring native birds back to neighbourhoods across Gisborne. Started by Whāia Titirangi and Mahaki Mahinga Kai, the programme empowers whānau to protect local taonga like pīwakawaka, tūī, and kererū from pests such as rats. By making trapping simple, safe, and accessible, Tu Taiao Tairāwhiti shows how small actions at home can create big change. Together, we’re restoring nature, strengthening community, and bringing birdsong back to Tairāwhiti.

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Not only do we collect e-waste for recycling,  we also refurbish, repurpose and reuse as much e-waste as we can. Our wonderful team of tech-savvy volunteers, led by Phil Armstrong, checks any viable devices that comes through the doors in a bid to increase digital equity. Where possible, these devices get restored and refurbished and subsequently donated to members of the public who show a need to access a device at no cost. Alternatively, they go to other community groups, schools or partner organisations such as TaiTech. 

 Thank you to Internet NZ for supporting this project.

As part of our waste minimisation efforts, we’re on a mission to tackle waste from construction and demolition.

Working with Gisborne District Council’s waste team, Trust Tairāwhiti, Ministry for the Environment, and local construction businesses, we’re investigating how best to reduce and reuse waste from residential and commercial building sites. Currently, there are limited local options for accessing reusable construction materials, and we want to change that. Still in the planning phase, we are currently developing recommendations, plans, and proposals. 

Thank you to Trust Tairāwhiti and the Ministry for the Environment for supporting this project.

Kia aroha ki te taiao, Kia aroha ki te tangata, Kia aroha ki te Tairāwhiti.

The awhi project is a regionally delivered programme to support mental health through celebration and supporting connection to the taiao. We want to celebrate community, our environment and our people through the sharing of kai. A simple investment in ‘lightness’ & manaakitanga will have immeasurable flow-on effects. 

Over the course of a year we will be celebrating local people who care for their whenua, commit to waste minimisation, and are all-round top kaitiaki.

More details will be released soon, watch this space

We are working with surrounding businesses and organisations to collect food waste and turn it into compost for our community at the TEC Community Compost Hub.

Additionally, we coordinate the Tairāwhiti Composters Network where we share ideas, workshops, webinars and news relating to regional composting related action and collaboration.

Thank you to Air NZ Every Corner Fund for supporting.

This project is revitalising the garden beds outside our local dairies.

Working with dairy owners and local community, we have filled planter boxes with compost, potting mix and flowers – spreading colour and joy.

We also provide Keep Tairāwhiti Beautiful litter pick-up kits & fish on drains signage to help keep the drains litter-free and create awareness of the stormwater-awa-sea connection.

 Thank you to NZ Lotteries Commission for supporting this project.

Our Trees for Survival regional programme works with five primary schools across Tairāwhiti, aiming to involve our tamariki in growing native plants. Plants grown by the schools are planted every year on a local landowner's property, by the school children.

We love this programme as it teaches our young generations the importance of native trees and how to care for them.

We have partnered with Gisborne Chamber of Commerce, MyImprint, Exchange Cafe and Tahu to run Green Drinks every month. This is a networking event where we discuss sustainability topics.
 
Each event features special guests from within the sustainability space, plus the free time to mingle and meet like-minded people. These events bring business and community together to discuss some of the most important environmental topics in our region.