Sharlene
Maoate-Davis

Sharlene has a background as a national speaker, trainer and facilitator of whānau/ family development and wellbeing.

Mum to Ria and wife of Kake, over the past two decades Sharlene has transformed her business, igniting her ancestral gifts and reclaiming her life’s true purpose as a Rongoā practitioner, working between Kāpiti and Wellington and more recently in Taranaki.

During this time she has become a partisan of all things native by nature. Learning from te taiao (the environment), Sharlene finds joy ushering in Rongoā – customary Māori healing wisdom, knowledge and practices. You might find her leading magical, Rongoā-inspired workshops at the marae or working one-to-one with a client beside the ocean. She is on a mission to ensure whānau reclaim and restore as much Rongoā healing wisdom as is possible.

Sharlene is one of three co-founders of the Rongoā Collective of the A.R.T. Confederation whose vision is ‘Rongoā in every whānau home’. This 40-strong, practitioner-led movement seeks to promote and redress decades of ‘invisibleness’ created by systemic NZ health bias. They provide tribally-centric Rongoā services, public workshops and events.

She is also the CEO of MokoPuna Solutions Ltd which designs and delivers mātauranga Māori training and professional development solutions to non-government organisations and government agencies working with whānau, hapū and iwi. Sharlene holds roles as an Iwi Trustee, local river Poutiaki and Iwi co-chair of a group of regional bio-diversity thinkers and doers.

Sharlene will spend her time on the big red dot talking about why we all have some sacred healing work to do, and how we can do it. This is going to be one special, empowering talk. Anō te pai!