My day started off with bottled up excitement, before even arriving at our destination I was pumped to explore something new and get the opportunity to experience something that most people don’t get to. I knew that I was doing a karanga for our opening Powhiri procedure. I was a bit nervous because I was doing it in front of a lot of people – including people from MAGS and the Unitech staff. I was representing Te kotuku and my vocals are a bit rusty, but I kept telling myself to be confident and think positively! After the whole Powhiri we got invited for a quick kai – the scones were exquisite! Then we set off in our small ropu to meet our kaiako and start our mahi.

My group and I were doing graffiti, our kaiako was Bobby “Berst” Hung , before we jumped into spraying something on the wall, he gave as information about graffiti and what it means to each individual street artist. He told us about his work and experience within the graffiti industry and heaps of facts here and there about graffiti. I was very open-minded and enthusiastic to what we were about to get ourselves into. Bobby told us that we had to come up with a concept or message of what our piece would be about.

Everyone in my team was automatically on the same page, our kaupapa was to project our values, our identity as Māori, and Te kura o Te Kotuku – basically to create something that shows who we are. We all brainstormed and collaborated towards our piece of work, and ended up with the main idea of what we were about to create. We geared up, chucked on a playlist of waiata, and got to mahi. Along the way, we got tips from Bobby but he let us do our thing most of the time.

Once we were done with our full product, myself alongside my tumeke team, was stoked to see what we had created in such a short amount of time. We ended our session with a haka tautoko to thank and acknowledge Bobby for teaching us and giving us the opportunity to be a part of history. All groups went back to the wharekai to do our big tautoko to everybody that contributed and helped us throughout the day.

I walked away with some great memories and heaps more knowledge, the biggest thing I walked away with from this experience was acknowledging that when everyone contributes towards one kaupapa we end up with outstanding results and work that we can be proud of. I’m very grateful to receive that opportunity and to experience being a part of history. – Na Georgia Williams 9PL

The Uni-Tech Māori trip gave me another point of view on Māori culture, I found out why it is imperative to deal with our condition and to consider how we can secure our home. At the point when we were weaving the Unitech helpers were very clear with their directions which made it simple to pursue. One thing that stood out to me was the lovely carvings inside the marae. At the point when I took a gander at the carvings, I thought about how much work they needed to put into them. – Na Sharn Edmonds 9KI