Drawing on diversity to unite people
Media Story by George Heagney, Manawatū Standard
Manukura’s Maia Moss won the Manawatū regional Race Unity Speech awards.
Warwick Smith / Manawatū Standard
A young speech maker has highlighted how people’s differences can bring people together.
Eight secondary school students entered the Manawatū-Whanganui regional heat of the Race Unity speech competition at the Youth Space in Palmerston North on Tuesday night
Manukura student Maia Moss, 16, was this year’s winner with her speech entirely in te reo Māori and qualified to go to the national final in Auckland in May.
This year’s topic was Te Moana Nui o te Kanorau - The Great Ocean of Diversity.
“I talked about understanding and focusing on our differences as something that separates us, but it’s something that unites us.
“I also spoke about how in te ao Māori we can look back on our past in songs and stories from our tūpuna (ancestors) to help us through the great ocean.”
She said her teacher thought because the topic was about diversity, it was “a good chance to be diverse myself and speak my first language”.
“I’ve never really spoken in Māori for a competition before, usually I do it in English.”
Some of the speech makers at the Race Unity speech competition are Angela Du, left, Anthony Yuan, Maia Moss, Abby Bleakley and Denise Pio.
Warwick Smith / Manawatū Standard
She learnt te reo Māori at Kura ā Iwi, her previous school in Tauranga where she was originally from, and at home.
“It was a bit different because I had to adjust the way I speak. In English I’m more animated and know the crowd understands everything I’m saying.
“Doing it in Māori, I wanted to try make everyone understand even though they didn’t know the words I was saying.”
Afterwards she received positive feedback and felt she had got her message across despite the language barrier for some people.
She spent 17 days preparing and said the speech eight times on the day.
Before the national final, where she would do the same speech, she planned to refine and extend it after receiving feedback from the judges. She believed she could improve.
It was the first time she had entered the Race Unity speeches after her teacher asked if she was interested, but she has entered the Ngā Manu Kōrero speech competition the past two years, in the junior, then senior English categories.
She planned to enter the competition in the English category again this year.