Te Ahi Orokohanga 2024
On Tuesday 9 April, Rotorua Energy Events Centre was the place to be!
132 students, mainly from kura tuatahi and kura takawaenga (years 5–8) came together last week for a uniquely Aotearoa, uniquely Māori esports experience. The event, which involved 16 kura and 33 teams — and consisted of a collaborative Minecraft speed build — was live-streamed on Twitch, entirely in Te Reo Māori!
A culturally safe and empowering space for rangatahi
Having piloted the event in 2022, this year's edition proved even more popular, providing a culturally safe, empowering space for tamariki and rangatahi to explore the digital world.
The event, Te Ahi Orokohanga, is a collaborative effort between Ngā Kura ā Iwi o Aotearoa, award-winning production company Local Gecko Productions, Digital Natives Academy, and Te Papatipu Matihiko Charitable Trust. The groups relish coming together to provide expertise and create memories that will last a lifetime.
Hannah Simmonds, Pou Angitu for Ngā Kura ā Iwi sees the event as an important part of the students’ cultural development.
“It is fundamental that our students are given opportunities to explore these spaces in a way that allows them to express themselves authentically as uri of their Iwi. We're so excited to be able to bring this experience to our students."
The crew at Digital Natives Academy will also share their digital well-being resource (book) Te Iwi Matihiko. Beautifully illustrated and available in both Te Reo Māori and English, it provides principles for a healthier digital existence, including sections on addiction, extremism, mis and disinformation, and cyberbullying.
A young member of the programme takes a test drive
A place to embed te reo Māori
Nikolasa Biasiny-Tule, who is CE at Digital Natives Academy, believes the digital world is an important place to embed Te Reo.
"Young people have immersed themselves in this digital realm, and unless we make Te Reo Māori easily accessible in the spaces where our children live, work, and play, we lose this incredible opportunity to further embed te reo Māori me Mātaruanga Māori within their lives."
A young student takes part in a racing game
InternetNZ | Ipurangi Aotearoa
Each year InternetNZ uses profits from the sale of .nz domain names to give out community funding. That means anyone who has a website ending in .nz, contributes to all the amazing positive public impact work that happens because of this funding. Find out more about this pūtea.