Tamariki and rangatahi Māori talk about Mana Mokopuna

In September 2017 we attended Ngā Manu Kōrero, a national secondary school speech competition that encourages the development of skills and confidence of Māori students in both te reo Māori and English. This was an opportunity for members of our Mai World team alongside the Children’s Commissioner, to engage with, and hear from rangatahi and tamariki Māori.

We wanted to engage with Māori children and young people about our Mana Mokopuna monitoring lens. The Mana Mokopuna lens is a child-centred approach for use in our monitoring of Oranga Tamariki. This lens has been developed from a Māori world view to learn about the experiences of children and young people who have been in contact with the care and youth justice systems.

We wanted to learn about what the six principles of our Mana Mokopuna monitoring lens means to children and young people. We spoke to them about whakapapa, whanaungatanga, aroha, kaitiakitanga, rangatiratanga, mātauranga.

Through our stall at the Ngā Manu Kōrero National speech competiton we heard from a range of tamariki and rangatahi. At first tamariki and rangatahi were apprehensive to engage with our stall. However, our facilitators found that once they began to engage with them about their whakapapa and their iwi they became more comfortable and confident. They were able to make connections with one another.

It was a privilege to hear and see the depth of kōrero and thinking of the children and young people who participated as speakers at Ngā Manu Kōrero. Young people are rangatira of their own experiences and we were humbled to hear from so many rangatira at Ngā Manu Kōrero 2017.