Community Waitakere celebrated Matariki on Wednesday, June 9 at Shri Ram Mandir in Henderson. The temple, which celebrated its one-year anniversary in the first week of June, has been a host to many big community events in West Auckland.

The Matariki celebration at the temple brought together members of the Hindu and West Auckland Maori communities including local residents to celebrate the Maori New Year. The celebration is about the significance of time, history, the constellation of the Pleiades, the alignment of the stars in connection with the rejuvenation of the earthly environment one lives in.

The event started with a welcoming prayer by the temple priest and a tour of the temple, followed by a short speech by CEO of Community Waitakere Charlie Moore on Matariki festival and recited Kai - waiata and Kaikorero paki folk hymn along with community members.

After a brief mix-n-mingle, the visitors were divided into two groups for the workshop. One stayed in the community hall for harakeke (flax weaving), led by Ann-Margaret Campbell Strickland, while the other gathered inside the temple hall for exchanging Maori and Hindi songs. People tried their hands at weaving traditional Maori artefacts using ribbons.

The evening glistened even more with a dance performance on devotional Hindu song and a short storytelling session by Wii Hotorene Rameka. The visitors swapped the activities after 15 minutes in each section and settled at the temple hall for the final prayer.

Community Waitakere members Aroha Te Namu and Jaclyn Bonnici coordinated the event and plan to organise more of such cross-cultural shows to bring the communities closer.