New Toi Ohomai App a Right Shift
Sunday, 08 Sep 2019
Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology will launch a new app designed to help achieve its strategic goal of Māori enjoying educational success, as Māori.
The launch of the app, Te Taupānga, on Friday is part of the institute’s programme to mark Te Wiki o te reo Māori and one of a range of activities aimed at promoting the use of the Māori language.
Te Taupānga is an online Māori cultural kit created as a resource and rallying point for Toi Ohomai staff to learn some important aspects of Māori culture. It was designed to give insight in to Māori protocols as they are practised in the Toi Ohomai catchment and to connect staff with expert advice on campus.
Executive Director Strategic Partnerships and Māori Success Ana Morrison says earlier this year, Toi Ohomai unveiled its Māori Success Strategy, which centres on Māori enjoying educational success – as Māori.
Ana says a key to achieving the goal is to position Toi Ohomai as an exemplar bicultural organisation and the launch of Te Taupānga will help enable that.
“Here at Toi Ohomai, Māori language, culture, knowledge and identities are important.”
“We’re encouraging our staff, students and communities to right shift and become active users of te reo Māori.
“Under the ZePA model, which is outlined in a paper by researchers Tangiwai Rewi and Poia Rewi, the challenge is for people to right shift from zero use, or a place of indifference to the Māori language, to passive where benefits of the language are apparent and on to being active users of te reo Māori.
“We want to challenge everyone to embrace Te Wiki o te reo Māori and it where and when you can. Even if it’s just a little bit at first, we can all right shift together.”
Along with launching the app, Toi Ohomai will also be hosting a range of other activities to promote the use of te reo Māori including a market day as part of the Aronui Arts festival at Rotorua, a full social media campaign aimed at providing basic mihi that can be used every day, an open forum discussion on digital colonialism and other fun activities.
Free burgers will also be provided on all Toi Ohomai campuses on Thursday to students and staff. To get a burger, people will need to use te reo Māori to make the request.