Meet Kailah + Kenape Saupese

Born into healing. Built for this moment.
Kailah Saupese · Founder + Visionary | Kenape Saupese · Creative Director + Operations

Kailah Saupese
Māori and Samoan | Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Kahu. Solosolo and Satitoa, Aleipata.

Kailah was raised in a family home where the Wellington Samoan community came for fofō long before they went to doctors. She trained in Te Rau Aroha under Marama Mata of House of Rehua, nurtured in rongoā Māori, mirimiri, and romiromi in Te Hiku o te Ika and a member of the Te Tai Tokerau Rongoā Collective.

She spent 11 years across HR and People + Culture roles in Wellington's government agencies. Then founded HR Boutique and Navigating Worlds, and worked with marae, Ngāti Kahu Rūnanga, and NGOs. She knows both worlds from the inside. Te Whare Hihiri is the consolidation of all three: her HR expertise, her coaching practice, and her healing lineage, held in one whare.

Kenape
Samoan | Le Pā and Fusi, Safotu, Savai'i. Born in Wellington. Raised in the PIPC community in Newtown.

Kenape grew up where faith, music, and togetherness were the foundation. For over 10 years he was the lead singer of Wellington band Tomorrow People. Since then he has channelled that gift into healing rangatahi — running music workshops and visiting schools around Te Hiku o te Ika (Northland), Auckland and Wellington, showing young people what's possible when creativity becomes medicine.

Together, Kailah and Kenape bring both the ancient and the creative. Bodywork, ceremony, and sound — held in one whare.

If your body has been carrying too much, this is a place to put the weight down.

Our story

Born into healing. Built for this moment.

A Sanctuary held by two, Kailah and Kenape Saupese, partners in life and partners in this.

Te Whare Hihiri

A Sanctuary that runs on the Maramataka

Te Whare Hihiri doesn't run on a calendar.
It runs on the Maramataka, the same lunar rhythm that told our tūpuna when to rest, when to push, and when to heal, long before "wellness" was a word anyone needed.
Walk through our doors on a hushed, inward new moon and you'll feel a different room than on a full, outward-reaching one.
A thousand years of watching the sky, written into ceremony instead of paper.

Mana whenua

Blessed by mana whenua

Te Whare Hihiri has been blessed by mana whenua, Taranaki Whānui ki te Upoko o te Ika.
Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou.

Kailah Saupese · Founder

Healing was the air she grew up breathing.

Kailah is Māori and Samoan: Ngāti Whātua and Ngāti Kahu, and Solosolo and Satitoa, Aleipata.
She was raised inside her grandparents' fofō practice, in a Wellington home the Samoan community came to for hands-on healing from the 1960s through to the 1990s.

Then came eleven years inside government HR, working to uplift Māori and Pasifika kaimahi inside systems that were never built with them in mind.
The work mattered.
It also burned her out.

She went home to Te Hiku o te Ika, worked with Ngāti Kahu Rūnanga and iwi NGOs, and alongside Otanguru Wellbeing Centre across marae in Muriwhenua.
She trained under Marama Mata, founder of House of Rehua, earning Te Rau Aroha Level 1 and Level 2, and her Matakite, her spiritual sight, was re-awakened there too.

She came home to Wellington and built Te Whare Hihiri in 2024, starting as a pop-up.
In her own words: "I can't help anyone else's people be well if mine aren't well first."

Kenape Saupese playing the keyboard in the studio, light through the curtains

Kenape Saupese · Director + Creative Director

He carries the Sanctuary's rhythm.

A musician first: lead singer, now a solo artist, and a Duffy Books in Homes Role Model inspiring tamariki around the country to read.

Kenape brings that same gift into Te Whare Hihiri, holding the community's voice and leading its rangatahi wānanga, using music and self-development to help young people find their voice and their gifts, one session at a time.

Te Whakaoho · The Awakened

Heal. Grow. Evolve.

Te Whakaoho was born out of Kailah's own awakening and reclamation.
It carries her journey, and everything the Sanctuary now offers.

Te Kore

Heal the tinana

Healing usually happens in the dark first, letting go of versions of ourselves we've outgrown.

Te Pō

Grow the hinengaro

As we grow, we start to see glimpses of light and the pathway forward.

Te Ao Mārama

Evolve the wairua

Until we're evolving fully in the light, as who we are underneath it all.

What we live by

Vā · Malu · Aroha

Vā

The sacred space between the healer and the person receiving care.
We work together, only as deep as you're willing to go.

Malu

Shelter, a place of safety.
Consent-led, trauma-informed, and leaving you feeling held, every session.

Aroha

Love and compassion.
We lead with it, for the people we serve and for the mahi itself.

Pure Hihiri

Come and awaken your energy.

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