Artist credit: Huriana Kopeke-Te Aho
Mana Moana
Image credit: Johnson Witehira
Karlo is the creator and founder of Mana Moana, an award-winnning leadership programme based on indigenous knowledge and language from the Pacific. It is a unique research-based kaupapa and movement that restores and vitalises connections to the ancestral intelligence of the South Pacific in transformative ways. Based on a framework by Paulo Friere, it draws heavily on metaphor, archetypes, words, and narratives from the Pacific. This has informed her creative work just as much as her professional practice.
Mana Moana was developed during her postdoctoral research, after identifying a need for it in her PhD. Her doctoral research explored culture, identity and wellbeing among New Zealand-born Pacific peoples.
For six years, Karlo has been the Programme Director of Mana Moana Experiences at Leadership New Zealand. Mana Moana Leadership Experiences have offered immersive, retreat-based year long journeys. Six cohorts have completed Mana Moana journeys with an alumni of more than 140 Pacific leaders.
Mana Moana also offers bespoke, tailored workshops and retreats, including Mana Moana Online, an eLearning offering. Karlo is the Kaitiaki Trustee of Fale o Mana Moana Charitable Trust and the Managing Director of Mana Moana Works Limited.
Mana Moana Online
This is a Mana Moana experience and learning journey created by Dr Karlo Mila and Gemma Sides. Join your guides, Alofa and Makavalu as they take you through six modules and explore ancestral knowledge indigenous to the Moana.
A meditative, poetic, reflective journey of learning, you will encounter 37 defining power-words widely shared by Moana peoples. Each of these is a window into worldview, a portal into the past.
This is an opportunity to explore the rich language, metaphor and meaning-making of Moana peoples, the heritage knowledge of the South Pacific which has gestated in the largest ocean in the world for over three-thousand years.
Mana Moana online connects you to ancestral knowledge, proverbs, and narratives that will guide us in the here and now. Encounter the wisdom of ancient and contemporary Pacific leaders, philosophers, poets, writers and thinkers. The experience is filled with interactive exercises, opportunities for reflection and tools for change.
The journey introduces and guides you through
VÄ centred leadership, a relational way of framing leadership and being in the world;
The Vete Process for conflict resolution, restoration and healing;
The Tau tool, a instrument based on indigenous knowledge to guide the design, implementation of completion of projects and processes; and
ancestral understandings of wellbeing, wisdom and harmony.
