Our kaumātua are resilient

Tess talks about ‘Have Our Say’ on Radio Ngati Porou

June 25 2020

Another great interview from Tess about our ‘Have Our Say’ project and her whānau experience of Lockdown NZ, this time on Radio Ngati Porou. She talked about how we felt letters were a good way to collect information about kaumātua experience because they are a generation who are used to writing letters and this method enables them the time and space to reflect on and record their experiences. Letters can be written in any language, including Te Reo Māori.

“We want to hear these stories so mokopuna can retrieve the toanga – the letter – from the Auckland Museum their kaumātua wrote about their experience of Lockdown. How did they hold onto their own mana, integrity, dignity? How did whānau go that extra mile? How did mokopuna help set up their kuia/koro on the internet? And how were kaumātua also helping their whānau?”

You can listen to Tess’s interview directly via this link:

https://soundcloud.com/radiongatiporou/interview-tess-moeke-maxwell

Tess is happy to be contacted directly by kaumātua interested in participating or by whānau or others wanting to support their participation at t.moeke-maxwell@auckland.ac.nz. A reminder that our project website is: http://www.haveoursay.org