23 Jul 2012

Young people push for kura

11:24 pm on 23 July 2012

A Tuhoe kaumatua based in Nelson is praising the younger generation in his rohe for pushing for a Māori language immersion school.

Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Tuia Te Matangi opened this month in Richmond, the first total immersion Māori language school of its kind for Te Tauihu or the top of the South Island.

Tahi Takao says in te reo although the seed was sown three decades ago, it has been the young adults who have been the driving force over the last 15 years.

Hei tāna, ko te aroha hoki ki te hunga, ngā pākeke o tēnei rohe, kāore hoki e tino matatau ki te reo - ehara nō rātou te hē.

Ēngari ko ngā whakatipuranga ō muri mai kua tino pakari ki te whai i te reo me ōna tikanga i kōnei i Whakatū, i Motueka.

Nō reira, he tino pai ki ahau te mōhio kei te whai rātou i tō tātou reo rangatira.

He has sympathy for the adults in the region who don't have the language - which isn't any fault of theirs.

But it has been the younger generation that has been developing Māori language strategies in Nelson, in Motueka, and the wider region.