Impressive kōrero by Manawatū teen at Race Unity speech finals
Media Story by Manawatū Standard reporter.
Maia Moss delivers her speech at Ngā Kete Wānanga Marae in Auckland on Sunday.SUPPLIED
Palmerston North teenager Maia Moss impressed the judges at the national Race Unity speech competition finals in Auckland.
The Manukura student won two awards at the event on Sunday: the Tohu Manukura i te Reo Māori Language Commission Award for te reo Māori, and the Tohu Eke Panuku Human Rights Commission Award for impact.
Moss gave her te reo presentation in front of more than 200 people including MPs, dignitaries and Police Minister Mark Mitchell, who complimented the finalists on their oratory skills, content and delivery.
Rangiora Trotman of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, the Māori Language Commission, said Moss’ speech gave a fantastic example of how contemporary and ancestral stories could be woven together to create solutions to some of the issues people faced today.
Trotman said the judges were pleased to present Moss with the award for impact “for the way she articulated that while we may be a nation of diverse waka, we can still chart a united course towards making Aotearoa New Zealand a better nation”.
This year’s topic was “te moana nui o te kanorau”, or “the great ocean of diversity”.
Moss, who won the Manawatū-Whanganui qualifying event, spoke about how people’s differences could bring people together.
She used part of a Manukura 2023 school chant that encouraged all seafarers struggling in the ocean to listen to the cries of the next generation and “climb aboard the great hull of collective effort, so the prow of the waka may cut through the towering waves of racism”.
“This is the voice of the youth declaring: ‘Let us not leave it for the Government to lead us to the shores of unity.’”
Jordyn Joy Pillay from Ormiston Senior College in Auckland was named the overall winner and won the Tohu Whetumatarau Ministry for Ethnic Communities Award for vision.