What makes a Maori a Maori?

Just catching up on a couple of Grapevine magazines, and found another article of interest. For those who puzzle over what makes a Maori a Maori, and many other issues relating to Maori and Pakeha in New Zealand, this is an accessible and readable interview with Sam Chapman, who, with his wife Thelma, is the founder of Houhanga Rongo and Project Awhi

Sam and Thelma live in Otara, South Auckland, and since 1978 have offered their love and their home to the kind of people no one else wants: people from prisons and gangs, and other people who are socially not in the right status quo.

You can find the article on Grapevine's website (amongst a host of other good material).

Photo courtesy of the NZ Herald

Men and Depression

One of the areas National Mission Office has been concerned with is the health of Presbyterian ministers around the country. Ministers can suffer from burn-out, depression and the symptoms that go with these. And often they feel forced to keep on keeping on because ministers are supposed to be capable people.

Male depression is only just beginning to be regarded as a prime source of suicide amongst men in mid-life - as recent tv ads will have indicated.

Via an article in the magazine, Grapevine, I've just become aware of a site called MenAlive.com. It focuses on depression, mid-life crises, irritable male syndrome (that's right, no typo there), and other related issues.

It's an American site, but it has a links page that is global in its range. And quite apart from that, depression is common to mankind (and womankind, or course!)