February 02, 2016
Te reo champion Mereiwa Broughton at rest
The karanga that called thousands of visitors into te ao Maori has been silenced.
Kuia Mereiwa Broughton passed away yesterday in Whaitara, Taranaki.
With whakapapa to Ngati Awa, Ngati Kahungunu and other iwi, she was born in Hastings and raised by her mother’s people in Te Teko and Kawerau, eventually training and working as a maternity nurse at Whakatane Hospital.
She married Ruka Broughton in 1960, raising their three sons and two daughters and raising awareness of Maoritanga in the communities he worked in as a tohunga and Anglican priest.
In the 1970s she because involved in tertiary education, including being involved in the establishment of Te Herenga Waka Marae at Victoria University.
She acted as a kuia for the Association of University Staff as well as for the Public Service Association and the Service and Food Workers Union.
She was also a familiar sight at parliamentary functions and assisting governors general.
Mereiwa Broughton’s wide-ranging contribution so the community in education, health, and justice was recognised with a Civic Honour Award from the Hutt City Council in 1999 and a Queen’s Service Medal in 2002.
She also received a Ta Kingi Ihaka Award from Creative New Zealand in 2009 in recognition of a lifetime contribution to the development and retention of Maori arts and culture.
The tangihanga for Mereiwa Broughton is at Pakaraka Marae in Maxwell near Whanganui.
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