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Iwi in Te Tau Ihu are using kapa haka to try to bring their people together.
The regional competition in Nelson at the weekend drew four teams, double the number two years ago, and the goal is to have eight teams by 2025 when the rohe hosts Te Matatini.
Te Tau Ihu Māori Culture Council chair Sonny Alesana says the festival was a chance to bring whānau together and also to get across some health and social messaging.
"We may be a small region with 16,000 Māori in the top of the South but we also have some health issues, some social issues that we have to deal with so part of that, the more our whānau are involved in kapa haka the more we can provide the support socially, economic and education," he says.
The competition was won by veteran roopu Kia Ngawari, which Mr Alesana says was a fitting tribute to its founder, Joe Paul, who died earlier this year.
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