‘More than a housewife'

Aroha Reriti-Crofts

Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Ma¯ori and the community

Aroha Reriti-Crofts joined the Ma¯ori Women’s Welfare League in 1968 because she wanted more out of life than “just being a housewife”.

Fast forward more than 50 years and Reriti-Crofts is today being made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit recognising her services to Ma¯ori and the community.

She served a term as the Ma¯ori Women’s Welfare League’s National and International President from 1990 to 1993 and is a life member of the tautahi branch.

Reriti-Crofts gave an interview to Te Karaka magazine in 2018 for an article marking the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand

She said she joined the league in 1968 as a single mother of four children.

“I decided I wanted something more than just being a housewife,” she told Te Karaka.

After a conversation with an aunty who was “a very staunch league member”, it was decided that she would join the

tautahi branch, she told the magazine.

Reriti-Crofts was inspired when she attended a national conference in Auckland watching thenpresident Hine Po¯taka speak.

“She just blew me away — this beautiful lady — and I thought, ‘One day, I’m going to be just like you’.

In the 1993 New Year Honours she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire recognising her services to Ma¯ori.

Since then, Reriti-Crofts has also been a trustee, director and chairwoman of Ma¯ori Women’s Development Inc. The incorporation is a unique indigenous financial institution for the economic development of Ma¯ori women and their wha¯nau.

Reriti-Crofts is also helping to advise and guide developers in the rebuild of Christchurch in her role as Matapopore Charitable Trust chairwoman.