Tauiwi Tautoko

Tauiwi Tautoko translates as 'non-Māori in support.' It is for all tauiwi (non-Māori) to support those who are targets of racism in online spaces. Initially designed for non-Māori to address racism towards Māori, the Christchurch terror attacks of 15 March 2019 prompted us to expand to all forms of racism towards Māori, POC, Muslims, and people of refugee backgrounds.

The principle of 'tautoko', or support, is core to our approach: we train and support those who are not the target of a particular form of racism to address that racism, in support of those who are the target. In this way, the programme provides an opportunity for tauiwi to lift some of the burden of dismantling racism off the shoulders of indigenous folk and people of colour.

Tauiwi Tautoko was originally developed by ActionStation. It started off as a community project to see how we could address racism on the internet. We believe that Tangata Tiriti - tauiwi Pākehā (European descent), tauiwi of colour, and tauiwi Moana (Pasifika) - have a role to play in anti-racism. ActionStation collaborated with Dr. Emily Beausoleil from Victoria University of Wellington to equip volunteers with evidence-based listening and messaging techniques, to have more effective interactions ‘calling in’ racism by other tauiwi online.

The Tauiwi Tautoko course content is available freely for anyone to engage with. This page is here to accept optional koha to support improving and maintaining the course and resource facilitation for groups undertaking this learning.