Wellington Region | Fixed-term | Approx. 30 weeks
Salary: $65,000–$75,000 pro rata
Applications Close: 17 April 2026
This is a deeply nurturing role that supports rangatahi wellbeing, engagement, and growth through manaaki, practical learning, and strong whānau and community connection. The Kaiārahi walks alongside rangatahi with patience, empathy, warmth, and high expectations that uphold and enhance mana, helping them grow in confidence, identity, belonging, and belief in their own potential. Through learning grounded in whenua, moana, māra, and te taiao, the role helps rangatahi build meaningful pathways for their future.
Papa Taiao Earthcare is a Category One Private Training Establishment that equips rangatahi with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to take action for te taiao and their futures. Learning is hands-on, community-driven, and deeply connected to Te Taiao, the natural world.
Our kaupapa is simple but powerful: education should recognise and strengthen the unique abilities of every ākonga. Many rangatahi do not thrive in traditional classrooms, but given the right environment, their curiosity, leadership, and talents emerge. In the moana, on the whenua, and within their hapori, they learn through doing, guided by those who hold knowledge and experience.
At Papa Taiao, rangatahi work alongside local experts, hapū, whānau, and community partners to address environmental challenges, develop real-world solutions, and create opportunities for regenerative enterprise. Through this process, they gain qualifications, grow in confidence, and deepen their sense of identity and belonging within their hapori and Te Taiao.
Our approach is guided by whakawhanaungatanga, manaakitanga, and poutama. We support ākonga to grow through challenge, perseverance, reflection, and achievement, while developing a deeper awareness of themselves and their ability to shape the future.
Many of our ākonga have had to navigate systems that have not recognised their strengths, their ways of learning, or the worlds they come from. Our pedagogy responds differently. We value learning that is relational, grounded, strengths-based, lived, and connected to purpose.
This role sits at the heart of rangatahi support and wellbeing within our TEC Youth Guarantee programme across Te Ūpoko o te Ika, based primarily at Battle Hill regional park and associated sites in the Wellington region.
This is a role for someone who understands that many rangatahi have not been well served by conventional education, and who can help create a different experience of learning — one that is relational, culturally grounded, practical, and mana-enhancing.
Our programme is grounded in practical, place-based learning and shaped by whakawhanaungatanga, manaakitanga, and poutama. Through mahi such as pest control, māra kai, tree planting, beekeeping, regenerative farming, tuku iho, tiaki taiao, and growing, gathering, and harvesting kai from māra, moana, and whenua, ākonga build practical skills, confidence, and pathways forward, while deepening their connection to whenua, whakapapa, food sovereignty, and te taiao. If you are someone who gathers, harvests, hunts, fishes, or grows kai for your whānau and hapori, you are likely to already hold many of the practical skills, values, and ways of working this role requires.
The role supports teaching and learning, but just as importantly it supports belonging, attendance, engagement, confidence, and connection to whānau and community. It will suit someone who knows that encouragement, consistency, humour, and presence can be just as important as formal teaching in helping rangatahi find their feet and grow.
You genuinely care for rangatahi and believe in their potential. You bring patience, empathy, warmth, and steadiness. You know how to hold high expectations in ways that whakamana rather than diminish.
You understand that many rangatahi need to feel learning in themselves before they can fully trust it. You know how to create conditions where ākonga can experience themselves as capable learners through doing, reflecting, contributing, and succeeding.
You are likely to bring:
Formal qualifications are welcome, but not essential. What matters most is your ability to support positive outcomes for ākonga, uphold their mana, and help them grow in confidence, belonging, and direction.
This role offers more than employment. It is an opportunity to stand with rangatahi, whānau, and community in work that is practical, hopeful, and of genuine value.
While this role is fixed term initially, there is strong potential for it to continue and become a permanent full-time role if the programme is successfully refunded for 2027.
Applications close: 17 April 2026
Role starts in May
Go to our website www.papataiaoearthcare.nz to investigate what we do.
If we are a fit, please send your CV and a cover letter outlining:
Applications close: 17 April 2026
Role starts in May