EDITORIAL: The recent announcement of Orama Oasis’s intention to establish a charter school on Great Barrier Island should spark both interest and apprehension within our community.
This proposal comes in the same week as the release of the disturbing report on the Whakapakari Youth Programme, detailing the abuse and neglect that occurred in an isolated educational setting on our island.
While the prospect of expanded educational opportunities is always welcome, the timing of these two events raises unavoidable questions about the risks of isolated educational models.
Though Orama’s vision is without question pure, the parallels between a secluded Christian boarding school and the past traumas of Whakapakari cannot be dismissed.
For years, island families who value formal education have sent their teenagers to the mainland for high school, often at great personal expense. The sacrifice has allowed tamariki to experience a wider world, preparing them for diverse careers and life paths.
We should ask if Orama’s proposed school could inadvertently create a two-tier system, where privileged families send their kids to the mainland, and other adults clinging to an island idyll for themselves, do so at the cost of their children’s futures.
The proposed curriculum at Orama, rich in niche skills like fishing and art, might enrich a hobbyist but, it could be argued, hardly prepare our youth for the rigours and realities of the world beyond our shores.
The reality of the last batch of charter schools under the previous National government, turned out to fail far too many kids.
Whakapakari promised rehabilitation and growth through isolation and tough love, funded by the state and trusted by families. Yet, the isolation that was meant to shield turned into a cloak that hid neglect and horrors.
Reports and testimonials from survivors detail a saga of cruelty and maltreatment, masked by the very seclusion that was supposed to be protective.
As we contemplate another isolated educational setup, we must ask: are we setting the stage for history to repeat its most grievous mistakes?
Orama Responds: 60 Years of Healing, Community, and Now Educational Opportunity
To the Editor of Aotea GBI news
The opinion piece you published on the 25th of July regarding Orama contained a number of errors. As Chair of Orama’s Board, I will take the opportunity to correct these.
The main, large error you made, in linking any Charter school opportunities that may open on Aotea at Orama with Whakapakari, was to use ill-informed and sensationalist language to infer a parallel that does not exist and has never existed.
“The timing of two events”, as you put it, in no way infers that two events are otherwise linked.
You wrote and published this article whilst hiding behind a screen of impunity, afforded to you by the fact you wrote this article as an opinion piece, from a jurisdiction outside of Aotearoa’s law and far, far away from Aotea and its community in the United Arab Emirates.
You then tripled your defence against libel by choosing the tagline “From the Editor” rather than putting your name to a piece that is undisputedly controversial, with a strong “guilty by association” taste to it.
Orama, (not Orama Oasis as you have referred to it- this is an out of date term) has existed on Aotea for 60 years and many lives have been changed for the better through its ministries and activities.
Part of this legacy has been close to two decades of hosting Hillary Outdoor Education.
Orama’s youth programmes, adult recovery programmes, artist retreats, holiday accommodation, conferences, and the events and family camps it runs, benefit from our stunning isolation. It allows for re-connection with self and others, for an improvement in mental health away from technology and the busy chaos of city life.
However, apart from having a less than perfect gravel driveway, Orama is no more isolated than many other areas of Aotea, and if you lived on the island, you would be aware that the people of Aotea travel frequently to Orama for “Neighbour’s Night” dinners, Waitangi and Matariki celebrations, and well as to work and play alongside our community.
Orama’s community also forms an integral part of wider Aotea. Orama’s kids go to the local school and we enjoy close ties with our neighbours at the two Marae and at Glenfern. Orama is not the isolated extremist religious centre you have painted it as.
Whakapakari was far more isolated, and while I am not familiar with the Governance or Management it had in place for the duration of its existence, Orama is a Charitable Trust run by a Board of 8 and a Leadership Team of 5. We have external auditors, peer review and quality control measures in place.
The politically unbalanced statements you have made regarding Charter Schools could also apply to many State run schools, as an alarming number of these are also letting students down.
Orama has only just begun a process of weighing up whether it will offer its own Charter school or collaborate with another Christian Charter school. Orama may become the EOTC centre for other Charter schools. The form of any educational institution at Orama is as yet unknown, nor is it confirmed that any Boarding school opportunities will be offered.
Whatever form it takes, we will not be setting a stage for grievous mistakes to be repeated. Rather we will set a stage that continues a 60 year legacy of pastoral care, a warm, genuine Christian community, opportunity for growth and learning, and setting young people up for succeeding on Aotea, Aotearoa, or the wider world.
The special character of the unique marine education setting we have will infuse an academic model to whatever we offer, with other life skills such as marine and bush survival, ocean to plate programmes, pest control, native planting and other care of the environment learning opportunities. Any programme we curate will have Christian values underpinning it.
While I agree it is good to have these conversations and learn from other’s past mistakes, I would invite you to come to Aotea and to Orama, to see for yourself the communities you feel you not only have a right to an opinion on but a right to publish words that draw unfounded links between a place where abuse was perpetrated and a place where people are healed.
I suggest if you intend to draw these parallels in future, that you be courageous enough to put your name to your opinions, and before presuming to answer “unavoidable questions”, you undertake some due diligence to research any possible links before you publish words that draw them.
Kirstie Mackey
Chair,
Orama Christian Trust Board
There are 3 comments
Totally different situation. Orama has been hosting school groups for decades….and with Hillary moving their operation to the mainland, seek ways of continuing and enlarging this. Orama is very much part of and intergrates with the Barrier wider community since its foundation in 1963. A healthy balance to offset drifting into dangerous practices such as inferred in the editorial.
Perhaps Orama would provide detailed information, to the Barrier community, on how this proposal would work, about oversight and any costs that parents would incur. Without information it’s just a ethereal idea.
Kia ora Dilly Barrier
Orama certainly will provide the community with information once a proposal for any project to be undertaken is more fully formed. At this point in time, as indicated in my reply to the original article, we have much work to do on what form any school or EOTC centre will take. It is more than an idea but less than a proposal at this point. Thank you for your patience.