Dain Guttenbell – Ngātiwai & Ngāpuhi
LifeStone is a Social Enterprise that started as a dream in 2016. Dain is on a mission to create honourable memorials for loved ones, here in New Zealand without compromising on quality or authenticity.
Dain’s passion for this cause grew when he experienced loss himself, the passing of their baby Nova. During the headstone selection process, Dain and his whānau were appalled by the service they received, during one of the most vulnerable times of their lives.
Dain took matters into his own hands, to ensure other grieving whānau would not be made to feel the way he did so he started the movement and LifeStone was established and they opened their first retail in 2019.
Dain says, “First and foremost we offer pastoral care through tikanga and kaupapa Pasifika cultural norms. We then work with whānau, to craft a memorial that the whānau want, to help them to honour and celebrate their loved one.
We focus on 100% Kiwi memorials, crafted 100% by Kiwi hands, to create jobs across the motu in an industry that our biggest advantage is being Māori, being Nga Tāngata o Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa.
We also created our own technology so videos, photos, music and written reflections can be accessed from the memorial so future generations can learn from their tūpuna. Us today, and our elders of yesterday.”
Recent Poutama funding will enable them to integrate their supply chain from outsourced services and products, and to move towards their goal of creating living wage minimum jobs, in the supply of demand we create through their retail presence and offerings.
“We are an entity where being Māori is our business advantage. We innovate our own technology to hold stories and whakapapa at a memorial, to crafting our kōhatu of seashells when the norm is to just import granite from China, India and as far away as Norway. We bring the jobs lost to offshore back home, in skilled craftsmanship that we have in abundance across Aotearoa and the Pacific through our own people,” says Dain.
Their goal is to create as big a demand for their memorial services as possible, and create jobs to service that demand at the level of hapū, marae, church and whānau. Dain says, “While we start with a focus on kōhatu and memorials, our scope is much broader to include potential opportunities such as crafting of houses from our seashell stone.”
For more information check out their website here.
