Empowering the Future: Mō Āpōpō Future-Makers
Hope may feel in short supply right now as we find ourselves facing increasingly frequent and complex challenges globally. But Ōtautahi-based Indigenous social innovation lab, Tokona te Raki, is creating spaces for young people to dream big, work together and design futures of their own making through its latest rangatahi initiative, Mō Āpōpō Future-Makers. Project Manager and Ako Ōtautahi Trustee, Alice Dimond, recently spoke about Mō Āpōpō at the CWEA Lincoln Efford memorial lecture, and shares more about the kaupapa below.
Piloted in 2025 across high schools, with youth workers and at workshops, Mō Āpōpō brings young people together to think creatively about the future Aotearoa that they want to share in. In a world of blame games, finger pointing and decisions being levelled at us rather than reached with us, these young people are learning that change doesn’t have to be something that happens to them; they can assert agency in determining the future they inherit.
The project is driven by research commissioned in 2025 by Tokona te Raki, in partnership with Think Beyond and Truwind, the Aotearoa Futures Barometer. The research found that over fifty percent of young people are increasingly concerned about how their needs are met, and sixty-three percent of young women are worried about the future. The research inferred that the fragmentation of society is playing a role in how we feel, leading to young people feeling disconnected, disengaged and defeated. So Mō Āpōpō set out to answer a fundamental question: how do we create a new generation of young people filled with hope, and activated to change things for the better?
Mō Āpōpō is based on the idea that the challenges of our future don’t have to make us feel helpless, they can instead fuel ambition and motivation to take action. The project brings diverse young people together to come up with creative solutions to future problems. The catch? The solution-making must start from a place of collaboration. Leaving blame games and finger pointing at the door, these young people are invited to play a new game – one where they learn how to listen to each other, bridge different perspectives and find the common ground our future needs. In a world that rewards certainty, collapses complexity into binaries, and gives visibility to inflamed disagreements, Mō Āpōpō offers an alternative.
One key point of difference in the project is the centring of a core narrative: the strength of our future lies in our diverse stories and cultures and how these weave together to create something greater than the individual parts. The initiative doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the richness of Aotearoa, Māori as the original stewards of the land, and the bicultural foundations the country stands on. While other programmes fall back on the usual and often Western ways we define and solve problems, Mō Āpōpō deliberately recentres Māori perspectives and stories to help rangatahi break free from conventional thinking. For young people from all backgrounds the approach resonates, with one saying: “It was really the use of the atua, it made it so clear to me how to approach a problem... Thinking about issues like that made it a lot more digestible”. Another reflected on the magic of this approach, saying that it meant that everyone could safely be part of the conversation. While the young people bring their individual passions, perspectives and interests into the space, they are invited to participate in open conversations to consider the things they can agree on collectively with their peers.
For many of those who took part in the pilot, it was a life-changing experience: “Before this, I didn't feel like I was a part of the future, but now I definitely do...I really want to help make the change and just keep changing and be positive, because I think the future could be great.” It’s time we help more young people with the tools, confidence and relationships to become the masters of what comes next. Only then will we have a new generation leading the change - prioritising curiosity over reactivity, collaboration over polarisation, and future-making over future-taking.
To learn more about Mō Āpōpō Future-Makers, visit the website here.