Kia ora koutou  

It is an immense privilege to be aboard and helping to paddle the WMP waka hourua as the Kaimahi Hapori/Community Coordinator.   

(Editors note; Alice started a new role as Kaiwhakatere ~ Project Navigator in August 2024)

I was born and raised in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and have spent a large proportion of my life exploring and being-with Tīkapa Moana/the Hauraki Gulf. I am of mixed Chinese (Indigenous Naxi and Han) and Irish whakapapa, and consider myself to be a committed tangata tiriti and the lucky child of multiple migrant diasporic storylines over time in Aotearoa’s history. I have a PhD, MA and BA(Hons) in geography, predominantly centred on cultural ecology, participatory action research, Indigenous research methodologies, and pedagogies for social change (that is, process and relationships with Earth are my jam!). My research, teaching and facilitation journeys have all led me to predominantly focus on and amplify strengths-based community-centred work, rooted in the Asia-Pacific region more broadly – and now, at home, in Aotearoa.  

I have called Waiheke – Te Motu Arai Roa – my home for the last decade, with new, emergent tendrils now stretching northeast across Tīkapa Moana to Aotea Great Barrier Island too. I am a passionate land tender, moon watcher and occasional mermaid, forever on an unfolding journey of re-membering and learning-with te taiao. I believe deeply in the power of slow, relational, and collaborative reconnection of our selves-in-community to place and environment, particularly in these increasingly precarious times of late-stage capitalism and climate breakdown. It is the ongoing commitment to reconnection and relationality that breathes life into my love of and for the WMP.  

So, join us on the waka; stick a paddle in the water and let’s see where we end up! Hei kona!