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Download AudioA hakari of te reo Māori is how Māori tertiary study support organisation Ako Aotearoa is describing its Tuia Te Ako 2022 webinar on Wednesday, marking 50 years of the Māori language revival.
Its kaihautu matauranga Māori, Joe Te Rito, says normally the organisation’s annual hui is in person, but Covid restrictions mean it’s going online this year.
That has the advantage of getting an extremely strong line up of speakers.
He says it will be a history lesson for many rangatahi who may take learning the language for granted, rather than the situation in the early 1970s at the time of the Maori language petition when just 15 percent of Māori were speaking their own language.
“I was one of the students of Victoria University Te Reo Maori Society who was on the steps of Parliament 50 years ago so I’m really proud of that fact and I never thought at that time as a 19-year-old that 50 years later we would have te reo Maori really blossoming like we have today. It’s heard on National Radio, pakeha radio, and on Air New Zealand, all sort of places through the media, and it’s becoming much more normalised,” Dr Tr Rito says.
People can register for the webinar at www.ako.ac.nz or hey can tune in to their maori or iwi radio station at 9am Wednesday.
The second day of the hui on Thursday is on the them heme is He Hākari Tikanga, a celebration of Māori values, and will be delivered largely in English.
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