Kaitiaki E Tu - Marae Emergency Planning

What it is

Not a training course delivered to a marae. A build, with one.

Your people do the work across four facilitated hui. We hold the structure and carry the delivery. Everything that comes out of it belongs to the marae.

By the end you are not holding a folder somebody else wrote. You are holding a plan your own people argued over, a team who know their part, and evidence that it works.

Functions, not titles

Every marae already has people who welcome, feed, decide, fix and look after. We identify the nine functions a response needs and ask who already carries each one. We do not hand you an organisational chart out of a civil defence manual and ask you to fit into it.

Honest about the limits

A marae will not turn whānau away, so the plan never asks you to. Instead it answers what happens when the kai runs out on day four, and it names the gaps plainly rather than papering over them. An honest gap is a funding case.

Tested, not just written

The plan is not finished until it has been run under time pressure with assessors scoring it. Finding out what breaks is the entire point, and it is far better to find out on exercise day than at three in the morning with the road closed.

The process

Four hui. One plan your people own.

Each hui is a full day at your marae, spaced three to four weeks apart. The gaps between them matter as much as the days themselves. That is where the ownership forms.

01Hui one

Whakawhanaungatanga and stocktake

We start with relationships and finish with an honest picture. What has happened here before, what could happen next, and what you have actually got. We walk the whenua together and count the real numbers: days of water, days of kai, whether the generator starts, where the mobile coverage dies, which road closes first.

Most marae learn something on this day that surprises them. That is the day doing its job.

You walk away withA ranked hazard picture for your site, a full resource register, a skills register of your own people, and a relationship map of who is around you.

02Hui two

Building the plan and forming the team

The working day. We bring back a draft plan built from Hui One and your people pull it apart. You set your own activation triggers: what actually makes you open the gates, and who has the authority to make that call at two in the morning without waiting for permission.

Then the nine functions are matched to the people who already do that work here. We also put three questions on the table that no standard guide answers: what happens when supplies run down, what happens if there is a tangihanga in the middle of a response, and what happens if the marae itself cannot be used.

You walk away withAn activation decision card, every function allocated with named backups, a site layout for response mode, and a plan that has become yours rather than ours.

03Hui three

Plan back and response team training

The plan comes back finished and the marae formally adopts it. Then we train. We open the hub for real, start the generator, stand the comms up, put the boards out and time the whole thing, because nothing exposes a plan faster than asking people to physically do the first fifteen minutes of it.

Everyone learns their own function and everyone learns everyone else's, because at three in the morning people are doing two jobs. The day closes with a tabletop walk through where nobody is being marked.

You walk away withAn adopted plan, a trained response team, role cards issued to every person, and a training record on file.

04Hui four

Simulation and assessment

A full scenario day, built from your own top ranked hazards. Assessors observe and score against set criteria. They did not facilitate your hui, and they do not step in to help. Communications drop out. More people arrive than expected. Something breaks and somebody is distressed. Your team runs it.

Afterwards your own people debrief first, in their own words, before any assessor speaks. Every finding then becomes an action with a name and a date against it.

You walk away withAn assessed exercise, a written findings report with timed observations, and a prioritised action list your marae owns.

Ten working days later you receive the assessment report, the updated plan, an updated gap register and a one page summary you can attach to funding applications. Then we step back. The plan belongs to the marae.

The outcome

What your marae holds at the end

Not a certificate. A working system, sitting on your own whenua, in the hands of your own people.

01A written emergency management planSpecific to your site, your hazards, your people and your resources.

02A named response teamEvery function allocated, with backups, and everyone has said yes out loud.

03An activation decision cardLaminated, at the hub. Six questions that answer whether you open.

04Nine role cardsFirst three actions, what you record, and the failure modes to watch for.

05A site layout for response modeWhere reception, kai, comms, first aid and the boards go.

06A contacts directory and relationship mapBuilt for your CDEM group and your rohe, not lifted from another district.

07A costed resource and gap registerWhat is missing, what it would cost, and what it would fix.

08Trained people and a training recordEvidence of who was trained, in what, and when.

09A written assessment reportFindings, measures and a prioritised action list with owners and dates.

10A review scheduleAnd a named person responsible for keeping the plan alive.

The difference

Most marae plans have never been tested. Yours will be.

A plan that has only ever been read is a document. A plan that has been run is a capability.

The simulation day is where you find out which one you have.

The scenario is built from the hazards your own people ranked highest at Hui One, so nobody in the room can dismiss it as unrealistic. Communications degrade partway through, because that is the gap most marae actually have. At least one situation comes up that the plan does not cover, because judgement matters more than recall.

Built from your hazardsNot a generic exercise. Your awa, your roads, your outage history.
Assessors score, they do not coachThey work to defined criteria for each function and they do not step in to rescue the team. Nobody who facilitated your hui assesses you.
Your team debriefs firstBefore any assessor speaks, your own people name what was hard. Findings land as confirmation rather than criticism.

For funders and partners

A written record, not a reassurance.

Kaitiaki E Tu produces a record of what actually happened on the day, with times against it, rather than a statement that the day went well.

Assessed against set criteriaEvery function is scored on whether it was activated, performed, recorded and connected. Assessors observe only, and nobody who facilitated the hui assesses the team they trained. The report goes to the marae.
Measured, not assertedTime to first briefing. Time to first contact with Civil Defence. Whether a status report was completed, and whether it was accurate. Real measures, taken on the day and written down with the times attached.
A costed gap registerThe programme produces a register of what is missing, what it would cost and what it would fix. That turns a funding application into an evidence based case rather than a wish list.
Capability that staysThe plan, the team and the training remain with the marae, along with a review schedule and a named owner. There is no ongoing dependency on Crisis Bunker to operate it.
Works across a whole networkBecause the programme maps functions onto whoever already carries them, it fits marae with very different structures and sizes. That makes investment across an iwi practical rather than bespoke every time.
Delivered in personFour full days on the marae with the people who will actually respond. There is no online module and no video substitute.

How it fits

Alongside the district response, not underneath it.

We bring your local Emergency Management Officer into the planning so your marae plan connects with the district Civil Defence response and your welfare centre is recognised within it.

The marae leads. Crisis Bunker carries the delivery. The officer is there to join your plan to the formal system rather than to run it. Escalation paths, contacts and reporting are built for your own CDEM group, because a plan carrying another district's contacts is worse than no plan at all.

Kaitiaki E Tu can be delivered on its own, or alongside a resilience hub so the trained team has the equipment to match. See how a full marae preparedness project comes together.

What it takes

What we need from you

The right people in the room

Trustees or komiti with authority to commit, the people who actually run the wharekai, whoever holds the keys and knows the buildings, and whānau who will be on site when something happens. Eight to twenty five at the first hui, settling to a core team by the last.

Four full days

Roughly nine in the morning until half three, spaced three to four weeks apart, held at your marae inside your own kawa. We schedule inside your tikanga, not around it.

Somebody to hold it

One person named as kaiwhakahaere, who is the point of contact between hui and eventually owns the plan. If nobody will carry that, we will say so early rather than let the programme stall after the exercise.

Honesty about the gaps

The register only works if it is real. Nobody is being marked on what you do not have. Every marae we have worked with has gaps, and naming them is how they get funded and closed.

Start the kōrero

Ready to talk it through?

Most marae start with a conversation. No pitch and no product. Just your place, your people, and what being ready looks like in your rohe.

Kaitiaki E Tu can be scoped on its own or alongside a resilience hub, and we can help you put the funding application together either way. The application is yours and the decisions are yours. We make sure the process is not the thing that stops you.

Start a kōrero Marae preparedness

You will hear back from a real person within two working days.