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Te Matawai meets for the first time today in Otaki to set a strategy for Maori language revitalisation.
The host, Te Wananga o Raukawa, is expecting each of the 13 members to bring supporters from the groups they represent.
Wananga chief executive Mereana Selby, who sits on Te Matawai as a representative for the education sector, says there is a lot riding on the new body.
"In 2013 Census didn't show that we are improving in the language it shows that we are attracting. In that we should be terribly concerned about given all of the efforts that have been gone into language revitalisation, obviously something has not been got right and so this board has been set up in the hope that a strategy can be advanced and that real progress can be made to nail our language to take it off the endangered species list," she says.
Mereana Selby says there is a huge amount of skill and experience around the table at Te Matawai, so the challenge will be to bring tother all the strands of the language revival.
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