Pānui

When Mereana Gell returned to Aotearoa after many years overseas, she felt out of touch with te ao Māori. So Mereana set out to learn and change her old way of thinking.

“I want to make sure, for the sake of our mokopuna, te reo Māori is revitalised in our whānau. I want to greet my future moko in te reo Māori when they arrive.”

“Your journey will be your own and it will look different to others. You may have bursts of progression, then years of nothing. That’s not a failure, it’s just the nature of the journey.”

“You could say it’s given me a rebirth. It’s given me the confidence to walk out the door and be comfortable about who I am.”

Liz, or Irihāpeti, grew up in Taranaki during the 1970s and 1980s, when being a proud Māori wasn’t easy or fashionable. “I realised it was time to learn about my reo and tūpuna Māori.”

“I want my children to grow up understanding te ao Māori, tikanga and te reo because I think if all of those things thrive in New Zealand, then we will all thrive as well.”