June 18, 2018
Station a portal to Maniapoto
Reaching Ngāti Maniapoto people wherever they are is the aim of the new manager of Maniapoto FM.
Doug Ruki starts the job today after serving as the Te Kuiti station’s kairahi tikanga for the past two years.
He previously worked for Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, chaired Maniapoto’s Te Nehenehenui Tribal Festival, and helped develop the tribal reo Māori strategy.
He says 90 percent of Maniapoto people live outside the King Country, so it’s important the station explore internet technologies and other ways make itself accessible to them.
"My goal is still to retain our uniqueness as Ngāti Maniapoto both on site, on air, online and off site and also to elevate that uniqueness both on air and online and also I want to expand so we can be still be relevant and be that portal, that tribal link to all our people," Mr Ruki says.
He says the radio station is a kaitiaki of the Maniapoto dialect so it needs to be part of the tribe’s language strategies, and it also has a role to play getting out information as it nears the end of its treaty settlement process,
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