Ember Innovations Pānui - October 2026
He aroha whakatō, he aroha puta mai
When kindness is sown, then kindness you shall receive.
E te Kōanga, tēnā koe! Spring is here! Here’s what we’ve been up to, and what’s coming up:
- Upcoming Events: Moemoeā Kōanga Kaitahi + Kōrero Sessions
- Nurturing Creativity, Growing Wellbeing — introducing our next Innovation Challenge
- Community Impact Tāmaki Makaurau with Auckland Council
- Lived Experience Research Grants Update
- Join us for a Nature Walk!
At the end of July, we held a Kaitahi gathering to celebrate Matariki.
This sparked meaningful kōrero about how we can generate and innovate to awhi and nourish community leaders. Regular kanohi ki te kanohi, face-to-face, gatherings emerged as a rongoā for many of the attendees during this dialogue.
With that said, we’re thrilled to invite you to our next Moemoeā Kaitahi, celebrating the season of Kōanga. In the spirit of spring, birth and renewal, we will be hosting this gathering at Whare Hau Ako - an Avondale-based creative wellbeing space. It'll be a chance for you to close out the year, tap into some creative making, and connect with other community leaders before the silly season takes over all our lives. Moemoeā is free to attend; just bring yourself and an open mind.
📆 November 26th
🕕 4pm - 7pm
📍 Whare Hau Ako, Avondale
Moemoeā Kōrero Sessions
We are SO excited to be hosting more kōrero sessions this year.
Moemoeā Kōrero sessions are lunchtime online kōrero with community innovators, leaders, or advocates. It's an open dialogue, a place to sense-check, to speak to the challenges, dreams, and aspirations of these leaders. We talk about hinengaro hauora, mental wellbeing, and where it fits into the lives of innovators and leaders.
For the next session, Karinia Lee, Head of Centre at the Centre for Social Impact, will join Tuihana Ohia to explore her insights from a life in philanthropy and social impact. Karinia is an absolute powerhouse in philanthropy; we have so much admiration for her and cannot wait to listen to this conversation.
📆 November 19th
🕕 12pm - 1pm
📍 Zoom
Creative practice is central to our mental health and wellbeing, it's at the core of what makes us human, whether music, art, movement, storytelling or other forms of creating.
We know that much of the mahi that helps us to access and nurture our creativity when we need it most happens quietly, is under-resourced and sits at the edges of the creative and mental health systems, without a firm footing in either. We want to change that. Ember Innovations is partnering with Arts Access Aotearoa, Auckland Council and our whānau at Ember Services to explore what it would take to make a real difference.
We know there’s already great work happening in this space and for our third Innovation Challenge we want to water the seeds of potential, amplify what’s already working, back the people doing great work and build stronger connections between the worlds of creative practice and mental health to nurture mental health and wellbeing.
We’re starting in West Auckland, building on the amazing energy and creativity already evident across the region. Our focus is on rangatahi wellbeing, but we also have a strong interest in intergenerational approaches and creative ageing.
If you're interested in getting involved, supporting, or just staying in touch, let us know:
In innovation, we always have to remain a bit audacious. Community Impact Tāmaki Makaurau was a reminder of this - for tangible changes in communities that benefit the people, we need to be demanding, audacious and courageous.
Ember Innovations was privileged to host two concurrent workshops at Community Impact Tāmaki Makaurau, where we offered a place for participants to indulge in imagination. Shaped around “intergenerational wellbeing”, we were encouraged to imagine flourishing through the eyes of a child, and to draw breath into, and share, the imaginations that emerged.
We continued the practice through visualising and feeling what the sensory experience of a flourishing Tāmaki Makaurau may be. Dropping into sensation allowed for vivid imagery to emerge. When we can imagine it, then we can work backwards to piece together how we may get there.
Our internal wellbeing is profoundly affected by our external environments. City design, distribution of wealth, accessibility to care, green spaces, mobility; these all weave together to shape and define how our communities are organised, and whether they can flourish collectively and individually.
A big mihi to the Auckland Council Community Innovation Unit for pulling together this momentous event and for allowing us to run this workshop. We are excited to be working alongside Auckland Council to bring the insights from this workshop to life.
At Ember Innovations, we are dedicated advocates for research. Research helps build a strong evidence base so we can advocate for better mental health and wellbeing outcomes in Aotearoa. We believe that researchers with lived experience of mental distress, addiction, or non-substance harm have valuable insights to contribute across many disciplines.
Ngā mihi nui to all those who submitted an Expression of Interest for Ember Innovation’s Lived Experience Leadership Research Grants programme. We were so humbled and thrilled by the EOIs we received. It takes so much time and energy to apply for funding, so thank you to those who submitted an EOI for sharing a bit of your research and showing interest in this opportunity.
Successful applicants have been asked to submit full applications, which will soon be going to the panel for review.
We’ll be announcing the successful applicants in December.
If you're interested in seeing what past research we've supported, head over to our Knowledge Hub:
Join us for a Spring walk on Friday, October 30th. We will meet at 7:45am for a 8am start at the Cornwall Park Cafe on Pohutakawa Drive and should arrive back at the cafe by 9am. We hope this is an opportunity to boost our collective wellbeing by creating connection and insight, combined with gentle exercise. RSVP is essential; please email tatiana@emberinnovations.nz to let us know you will join us.
