Nuku Ora is a concept that represents activity, movement, life, and joy. It encompasses the outcomes that we want to achieve in our region and reflects our vision of “Hauora. Everyone active, healthy and happy.”

For us the process of changing our name has been about creating a unifying identity for the organisation. Something that truly reflects the outcomes we want to achieve, and the work our staff do every day.

When we embarked on exploring what a new identity for our organisation could be, it was important for us to  develop a robust process that enabled us to connect our strategy, the people and communities we serve, and with our region and its mana whenua.

We wanted to develop a bicultural identity that didn’t rely on translation, but rather developed a strong sense of duality and meaning from a te ao Māori and te ao Pakeha perspective.

Download our Nuku Ora Storybook

The first step was to develop a value proposition that reflects the core difference we’re able to make for our audiences – the value that we offer them. We worked with a Community Reference Group, consisting of 14 people from across health, sport, active recreation, councils, and funders and together, we identified our value proposition as:

Transforming the wellbeing of our communities through physical activity.

We then worked with consultancy firm, Te Amokura, along with our Iwi and Wairarapa Partnership Manager, and were able to talk with five of the six iwi in the Greater Wellington region.

These conversations explored what physical activity and our value proposition means to mana whenua. A whakataukī was then developed for us by Te Amokura from the common themes that emerged through these separate conversations to reflect the te ao Māori understanding of physical activity/health and wellbeing and their connection to land/place/people in our region.

Kia rau nuku, kia rau wai, kia rau ora. 

It is from this whakataukī that the name Nuku Ora is derived.

Read more about our rebrand process: