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Taranaki's alternative education students

Kanye Taipari has made history in New Plymouth alternative education.The 16-year-old is the only student to get NCEA Level 1. That got him to Witt where he is studying Construction Level 3.When the Taranaki Daily News first caught up with Kanye in 2021 he had been kicked out of New Plymouth Boys’ High School, which, theoretically, ended his dream of becoming a builder.To go to Witt he needed NCEA, which he couldn’t get at alternative education.But, Kanye proved them wrong.Link to article:&nb...

A voyage into the Māori past

How Māori lived on the sub-Antarctic island of Enderby is the focus of an ambitious expedition involving scientists from the University of Auckland, the University of Canterbury and Ngāi Tahu.A challenge to the idea that pre-colonial Māori adapted to living in Aotearoa by planting gardens like kumara in the north and hunting wild resources like seals in the south is the focus of a significant expedition to the Auckland Islands in the Southern Ocean.The Marsden-funded expedition is led by Simo...

More Kiwis ‘on struggle street’

A social service manager says the financial pressures wrought by the housing crisis, COVID-19 and inflation have been compounded by recent weather events, putting many more Kiwis “on struggle street”.Brook Turner, head of services development and partnerships at VisionWest, says many New Zealanders have been plunged into money troubles, forcing them to make difficult sacrifices.“We set up a pantry restock pop-up or social supermarket in Glen Eden. People who’d been affected by the floods...

Cyber security experts warn Kiwis about new phishing scams

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Crucial date looms for deep-sea mining in the Pacific,

As a crucial deadline looms for a new frontier of mining in the deep Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islanders are worried the controversial practice could go ahead before proper regulations are in place.The International Seabed Authority (ISA) will begin accepting applications for industrial-scale deep-sea mining in Pacific waters in July.Cook Island resident Alanna Smith said any damage to ocean ecosystems would be devastating for her country, where the sea is central to life."I've always admired watch...

Nanny Pura Whale:

The respect the Taihape community has for its elders can help defuse situations from becoming too heated, a 79-year-old Māori warden says.Almost every Friday and Saturday night, Nanny Pura Whale puts on her Māori warden uniform and heads out into the night to watch over the shops and youth of Taihape.It is something Nanny Pura has done for nearly 35 years and she has no intention of stopping anytime soon.Recently, she starred in a new documentary about the wardens on Whakaata Māori ...

‘We haven’t learnt much’:

Nature-based solutions - the words flash up in bold on a Gisborne District Council screen.It is late March, and Forest & Bird freshwater advocate Tom Kay is presenting to 13 councillors, the mayor, a selection of council managers, and a handful of onlookers about the importance of rethinking natural disaster mitigation.Kay wasted no time, and pulled no punches.The message was sobering - more frequent and intense rainfall should be expected across the country due to climate change, more commu...

Cost of living:

Pensioners are struggling to survive as inflation pushes the costs of essentials out of reach, forcing many to skip meals just to get by. Aotearoa is grappling with a cost of living crisis as mortgage rates, rents and food prices skyrocket - driven by inflation of 7.2 percent. But while the cost of everything is increasing, New Zealanders who are on fixed incomes, such as superannuitants, are barely staying afloat - and some have nothing left over after paying rent. Research by th...

Court of Appeal orders return of two children

The Court of Appeal has ordered the return of two children from New Zealand to France, following their parents' marriage breakdown and "tortured" legal proceedings.The primary school-aged children were born in France and lived there until October 2020 when their New Zealand mother brought them to this country for a holiday.In April 2021 the mother and the children were supposed to return to France but were prevented from boarding their plane because one of the children did not have a negative Co...

ChatGPT:

Since OpenAI’s writing bot sprung onto the scene in 2022, there has been widespread concern about students using it to cheat on assignments.But many educators have taken a different tack, teaching kids how to use AI tools responsibly and making it a regular part of their teaching practice.Auckland language teacher Katy O’Grady is one of them. She said there were “really positive” ways for students to use AI in school.“It’s just a matter of teachers getting one or two steps ahead of t...

Bringing health care closer to home –

Boosting home and community-based care was meant to be at the core of the 2021 health reforms, especially for older people. What happened? The Government decided it needed (yet) another review.For most of her career, Jane Kelley has worked on the ‘public’ side of the wary public-private divide that exists in healthcare. She comes from a public service lineage: her dad spent 45 years working for NZ Police, her mum was a theatre nurse.Kelley herself has spent most of her career worki...

Melatonin –

The number of Kiwi kids prescribed melatonin for sleep struggles has more than doubled in four years. Nikki Macdonald investigates whether the darkness hormone is a miracle drug, or a poor substitute for scarce sleep support services.From day one, baby bedtime was “full-on war” for Maria Sanchez.Mattias would sleep for 45 minutes to an hour, tops. As he got older, he’d climb out of his cot and try to play. Ignore him and there’d be a meltdown.She and husband Mac Fuiava Pouniu took turns ...

Air NZ admits breach of tikanga

Air New Zealand has apologised and promised to change its procedures after it took the 11th-hour intervention of its chief executive before it allowed a grieving woman to take home her mother’s remains to their marae.Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.Air NZ’s cargo operations crew had insisted that only a funeral director could uplift the late Maureen Delamere, despite the concerns of her daughter, Anahera Delame...

One of the biggest online markets for stolen information has been shut down.

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Socially Awkward:

In our regular Your Weekend column series, Socially Awkward, our etiquette experts answer your questions on how to behave when things get awkward at home, work and elsewhere.This week, it’s Stuff Kaihautū Reo Māori, Taurapa.Q: I’ve been at events recently where people do mihi to open proceedings and it’s clear that they’ve got minimal command of the language. Is it better to attempt te reo Māori knowing I am mangling it, or to wait until I can pronounce it correctly?A: There are a cou...

TEEN PERFORMS POWERFUL HAKA TO HONOR MOM

“My mum graduating her bachelor in social work & my little brother getting up to Tautoko the best way we know how,” Shay’s video reads. She adds in the caption, “Very proud of you mum 4 very long and hard years finally paid off!!”Link: Teen performs powerful haka to honor mom on her graduation day in emotional TikTok: 'Instant tears' (intheknow.com)...

Māori Muslim whānau

Arif Kahurangi Hussain (Te Roroa) along with his brothers in faith, Tuhoi and Philip, are among the thousands of Muslims in New Zealand participating in Ramadan this year. Although they come from Māori families, they have embraced the teachings of Islam, which is the fastest-growing religion in the country. According to statistics, there are approximately 50,000 Muslims in New Zealand, including 1400 Māori. Hussain, who started practising Islam nine months ago, has found ac...

‘Shocked’ by the loss:

CNN — Every year scientists in New Zealand fly over some of the country’s most iconic glaciers – ancient ice “rivers” that descend from the Southern Alps, a spine of mountains that extend along the South Island. And almost every year, they find them shrinking.This year was no different.At the end of March, the team of scientists spent eight hours flying over the peaks, taking thousands of photographs of glaciers for the annual snowline survey. Andrew Mackintosh, a professor a...

Backflip by iwi

Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust has chosen to support Waste Management New Zealand’s resource consent application for a 26 million cubic metre “mega dump” in Dome Valley, north of Auckland.It’s a change of heart that has sent shockwaves through opponents of the landfill.A joint memorandum between Waste Management and the Manuhiri Kaitiaki Charitable Trust - a subsidiary of the Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust - was filed in the Environment Court earlier this year.The court has been sitt...

History book launches in time

A journal to help support Māori history being taught in schools has been launched.Te Pouhere Kōrero 10, written by a collective of established Māori historians of the same name, follows the reset of the history curriculum, which is now officially implemented across all New Zealand schools for years one through to 10.The group was first established in November 1992 during an inaugural hui at Rongopai Marae Waituhi, near Gisborne, with its focus on Māori and Indigenous history.“The grou...

Auckland City Mission's online GP service

Auckland City Mission Calder Health Centre nurse Anna in April 2020.  Photo / FacebookWhānau visiting Auckland City Mission's health centre will now have access to an online GP service.A new collaboration with ProCare and Southern Cross Health Insurance means the health centre can now triage cases onsite.Alongside the centre's nursing team, CareHQ's online GPs remotely engage with patients to deliver a "whānau-centric approach", ProCare said Thursday.Many of the c...

Why Māori renaming

Opinion: In Aotearoa the long shadow of colonial overlay is reflected in the endurance of names with little bearing to the land, its stories or people, writes Robin KearnsNgā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa New Zealand Geographic Board (Pou Taunaha) has made decisions that were confirmed by the Minister for Land Information on seven names for new central and south Auckland railway stations. Notably Pou Taunaha officially altered Britomart Station to Waitematā Railway Station. Unsurprisingly, there have...

Privilege in Perpetuity

'The idea of Māori privilege continues to be deployed in order to constrain Māori aspirations and maintain the power imbalance that colonisation achieved in the nineteenth century.'The ‘idea of Māori privilege’, as Peter Meihana describes it, is deeply embedded in New Zealand culture. Many New Zealanders hold firm to the belief that Māori have been treated better than other indigenous peoples, and that they receive benefits that other New Zealanders do not. Some argue that the supposed p...

Te Whatu Ora: Survey reveals bullying,

The results of the first survey of staff at Te Whatu Ora since its establishment last year reveal only just over half believe the merger will improve the health needs of the community. The survey was conducted in late November to mid December last year and completed by 28 thousand staff - 29 per cent of the organisation. Te Whatu Ora has refused to release the survey, citing staff privacy and the need to protect future surveys. The results are consistent across the country, and reveal a lack of ...

Te Ao Māori News reporter Muriwai Hei's

“Growing up, one thing that my parents always taught me is to be who you are, not who the world wants you to be.Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.“I didn’t want to be a kiwifruit picker, I didn’t want to work on the mussel boats or anything, I wanted to be a reporter – and here I am today.”At just 21 years of age, Te Ao Māori News reporter Muriwai Hei – full name Muriwai Te Miringa Te Marama Hei – sp...