More mobile COVID-19 vaccination vans funded by Māori for Māori are hitting the road in New Zealand's most unvaccinated regions.
Te Aroha Kanarahi Trust has raised over $120,000 since Saturday for a bus to target farmers and forestry workers living in remote spots from Potaka to Whangara on the East Cape.
The trust fears some of its most far-flung communities aren't listening or can't get to the district health board's rural clinics. It's launched a private crowdfunding campaign for its own mobile vaccination bus.
In three days, it's hit $120,000 to buy a vaxi-van targeting people from Potaka to Whangara.
"Now it's daylight saving they work past 6:30pm," said Ani Pahuru-Huriwai of Te Aroha Kanarahi Trust.
"They work long hours so they are not able to get to the vaccination clinics - we have other whānau in those areas who don't have a vehicle."
The Ministry of Health's latest statistics show Northland, Bay of Plenty, Lakes, Tairawhiti, Taranaki, and West Coast are lagging behind for first and second vaccinations.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it would be more labour intensive to reach those people.
"That takes us actually finding those people having the conversation and not waiting for them to come to us," she told reporters.
But Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said "they need to stop dressing this up".
"You can only dress a pig up so many ways. The reality is we still have half a million to still get through [vaccinated] - a large proportion of which are Māori."
Ngarewa- Packer said it's about trust; three mobile vans loaded with fridges and vaccines will hit the road in Hawera and south Taranaki this weekend.
The aim is to emulate the success of the 'by Māori for Māori' approach which saw one pocket of the East Cape 80 percent double-jabbed before August.
"They will be waving flags and you will hear us before you see us... to say, 'We're here, we care and we've come to you' and I think that's what it's really about," Ngarewa-Packer said.
