Aumangea closes its doors

After ten years of operation, the Aumangea programme is being wound down.

The brainchild of MAJGEN Dave Gawn and WO1 Danny Broughton, the Aumangea Programme supported the ideal of creating a way to further generate a modern, agile, highly adaptive individual who can operate, survive and thrive in an environment that is complex and, often, unwelcoming.

“Since the Aumangea Programme was introduced, the NZ Army training practices and phases that were once the domain of the Aumangea Programme have evolved and been incorporated within courses for the wider organisation to further benefit from,” said Land Component Commander, Brigadier Jim Bliss.

The focus of the Aumangea Programme was not based on learning military hard skills but rather on individual growth within the domain of mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing. The programme strengthened an individual’s resilience, perseverance, innovation, self-belief, self-awareness, selfdiscipline, self-determination and self-confidence.

It also used learned psychological resilience tools to develop an individual’s thought process and behaviour, enabling them to be comfortable with austerity, to overcome adversity, to be agile of thought and in action, be adaptable to the complexities of the contemporary battlefield.

“The programme expanded an individual’s mind-set with a singlemindedness on how can I do this, rather than how I cannot,” says BRIG Bliss.

“The dedication and passion of our soldiers and those members of Navy and Air Force who adapted and developed the programme has been fundamental to its success,” BRIG Bliss said. “However we can now deliver similar effects more broadly.”

Changes that have occurred in the NZDF training space since the programme’s inception include:

• The NZDF Leadership Development Framework (LDF) has been developed which contains the resilience framework – and the Army specific adaptations. While it is different from the Aumangea Programme, this will provide a greater throughput of students to develop their resilience though promotional courses and Experiential Leadership Development Activities (ELDA) conducted by Army Leadership Centre (ALC).

• The NZ Army Marae, Rongomaraeroa O Ngā Hau E Whā is developing the cultural education of Ngāti Tūmatauenga which will conduct the holistic cultural outlook required.

“The Aumangea programme was uniquely different to all other NZ Army courses which provided volunteers a medium to grow and develop skills that were not directly linked to their chosen career,” says BRIG Bliss.

“It was ideal for those service personnel who were struggling to find purpose: volunteers were removed from day to day distractions and immersed into a world of survival, self-help and combat; pushing personal limits and coming out the other side a better soldier, sailor, or airman or woman.” Since inception in 2010, the Aumangea Programme has qualified 317 soldiers, sailors and airmen, including personnel from the US Army and Canadian Armed Forces.

A ceremony marking the end of the Aumangea Programme will be held at the NZ Army Marae in Waiouru in November. The programme officially closes on 12 December 2020.