Kia ora, ko Evelyn tōku ingoa.
Ko Ngati-Pōneke toku iwi. Nō Wainuiomata ahau.
So I'm born and bred in Wainui,
it's my whenua, and I love this place.
The reason I feel so passionate about
Aotearoa New Zealand histories is because
for me having grandparents that were adopted
and not knowing my iwi and my actual whakapapa,
I've taken on my land here and so
growing up my sense of my own tūrangawaewae
wasn't very strong.
Local Māori histories matters so much, I think,
because it connects people to places
and areas that we live in.
A lot of us may have roots in different whenua
around New Zealand or even over, you know,
around the world, but that doesn't mean
we can't have wings elsewhere.
And I think for a lot of us there is
a disconnect from maybe our past whenua.
So it's actually trying to acknowledge what is here now,
and where we are, and really appreciating that.
Kia ora koutou, ko Himalaya tōku maunga,
ko Yamuna tōku awa, ko India tōku iwi,
ko Rakesh tōku hoa Tane, ko Richard tōku tamāhine,
ko Robin tōku tama, ko Sharda tōku ingoa.
No Wainuiomata ahau, no reira tēnā koutou,
tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
We need to know our roots, where we belong.
And it helps in further learning and knowing
where we are and moving forward.
History is really significant because
it helps us learn from the past
and know our achievements and also our downfalls.
My beginning point with connecting with kuia
and kaumātua is through like family and relationships
and I mean being brought up in Wainuiomata.
We're all connected, like the principal of the school
was one of my old teachers. I went to school with her sons
and we're all connected you know,
in our little whāriki of networking.
And I think it's important that in order to build
those relationships, you have to start from something.
Ko wai au, ko Mate Taitua tāku ingoa,
nō hea nō whakatau hea Ngai Tūhoe, tāku mahi roto
i te hāpori, is to bring back Te Reo Māori,
nga tikanga e pai ana ki ō mātou tīpuna.
I do a lot i roto i te hāpori
so I'm a kaumātua for Wainuiomata marae.
The local story would be te pepeha o Wainuiomata.
The one that wrote it was Linda Olson,
she's the manager of Wainuiomata marae,
and she wrote te pepeha o Wainuiomata
which is you know, to do with Wainui,
and the maunga is Pukeatua, Wainuiomata the marae,
te Āti Awa te iwi, Tokomaru te waka.
That's an awesome way to bring
part of the history of Wainuiomata.
It used to be called Glendale School and Glendale
kindergarten in the sixties when it was built.
And they changed to Pukeatua maybe eight years ago.
There was a naming ceremony, because we wanted to name it
according to the area where it belongs.
Pukeatua hill, Pukeatua bridge,
Pukeatua kindergarten, Pukeatua school,
so it signifies to the land, the whenua.
As Te Whāriki says, children learn from people,
places, and things by making connections.
That's how children learn, like starting from the whānau.
So wherever you live, a neighbourhood or anywhere,
you need to feel connected to people,
you need to know my local area.
People can be whakamā about even reaching out
like, you know, it's just going to a marae
just to talk to people can be very, very intimidating
if you don't know, you know?
My one piece of advice for kaiako that might be
starting out in their place-based and localised
curriculum journey would be to look at
where they stand, where they are right now.