\u201cMy first birth was really traumatic … I felt like I wasn\u2019t listened to by the doctors or midwives,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
With her wh\u0101nau based in Wairoa and no extended family support in Hastings, Roberts said she often felt isolated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty much doing it on my own … which meant I had to find support somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roberts, who now has children aged 6, 2 and 1, said Mamia helped her find her voice as a mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough Mamia, I became confident. They helped me with antenatal classes and helped me heal from my past experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned how to stand up for myself, so with my third baby, I was listened to, I was confident enough to say, \u2018no, that\u2019s not what I wanted\u2019. The whole experience was beautiful this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another benefit, Roberts said, was the ongoing support after birth.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing there, having that break, talking to people who aren\u2019t babies, that was huge for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘They helped me with antenatal classes and helped me heal from my past experiences,’ mother-of-three Danielle Roberts said. Photo \/ Rafaella Melo<\/p>\n
Mamia founder Dr Aria Graham, who started the project four years ago at Waipatu Marae, said they had helped about 600 families over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur current space is not big enough … This 185sq m whare is fit for purpose,\u201d she said at Friday\u2019s opening.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, we\u2019re going to be able to serve lots more p\u0113pi, tamariki, m\u0101m\u0101 and wh\u0101nau, and have more initiatives. We also want to support more fathers. So, looking forward to what magic can come out of this place as well.\u201d <\/p>\n
The new building will offer sleep rooms for babies, play and learning areas, and outdoor spaces for early-years development programmes. <\/p>\n
TW Group\u2019s senior development manager Isaac Aitken said the project involved about 18 months of collaboration across the company\u2019s trades.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 18 months ago, we came on board after hearing about Dr Aria\u2019s vision,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA project like this would typically cost between $600,000 and $700,000 … part of our vision to support was to do this at no cost to Mamia. We wanted to give back.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 50 suppliers donated materials, labour and time. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe reached out to all of our suppliers, consultants and people who build homes with us, and we got them to donate,\u201d Aitken said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had people here after hours and on weekends, turning the vision into that reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s opening brought together about 200 people, and the team will move in this week to welcome users to the new building. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMy first birth was really traumatic … I felt like I wasn\u2019t listened to by the doctors or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[89168,1561,2082,4975,1976,89167,30510,117,111,43,139,69,19276,2680,1886,67016],"class_list":{"0":"post-128634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-700k","9":"tag-bay","10":"tag-for","11":"tag-free","12":"tag-hawkes","13":"tag-mamia","14":"tag-mothers","15":"tag-new","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-offering","21":"tag-opens","22":"tag-support","23":"tag-whare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}