Events
STUFF — MANUKAU COURIER — MANUKAU COURIER — 18 DEC 2009
Scholarships give bilingual duo a head start
Year 13 students Bryce Kaumoana and Chanelle Herewini have each been awarded $4000 towards furthering their studies. The scholarships were awarded by Arrow International, one of New Zealand’s biggest project and construction management companies.
Bryce says the money will pay half his fees for the first year of a graduate diploma of game development at Auckland’s Media Design School. "It would’ve been very difficult for my family and me financially without the scholarship. "Mum was so happy and proud when she found out, she even cried," he says.
Chanelle says the scholarship will give her "such a good headstart" for her first year of a bachelor of business at AUT University. "My whole family was there at the prizegiving to hear my name read out which made it even more special."
Arrow International already sponsors an end-of-year academic prize at the school and employs its graduates, chief executive Hugh Morrison says. Te Whanau o Tupuranga opened as a year 7 to 13 bilingual secondary school in 2006 after 20 years as the Maori bilingual unit at Clover Park Middle School.
Tagata Pasifika TVNZ Sept 2009
Pacific Computer Club: Clubhouse 274 Otara Auckland
New Zealand Herald — 29 July 2008
Tech-savvy teens take it to world stage TECHNOLOGY
Otara students win trip to technology fair in Boston
by Vaimoana Tapaleao South Auckland reporter
A group of tech-savvy Otara youngsters have earned themselves a trip to an international technology summit in the United States.
Fourteen-year-olds Ofoi Taumoelau, Kataraina Lio and Lars Malungahu will join up to 300 young people from around the world at the biennial Teen Summit in Boston, Massachusetts, where they will design technological projects addressing community issues.
The students - Ofoi and Lars from Otara's Clover Park Middle School and Kataraina of Te Whanau o Tupuranga School - were chosen from more than 200 students who are part of the country's first computer clubhouse: Clubhouse 274.
The Otara-based after-school programme allows youngsters to design and create projects such as video games, mini-documentaries, beat-mixing to record their own music and also deal with robotics and animation programmes.
Ofoi says she is looking forward to the summit and using technology to change people's views of her home.
“Otara's not a bad place. Media [can't] just focus on the negative side - we have heaps of good stories here,” the 14-year-old, who enjoys making videos, said.
Hosted by the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network, the six-day Teen Summit begins on August 5 and will include teens from over 21 countries, who will create projects using advanced technologies and creative media, addressing a need within a community.
274 Director Kane Milne said: “There's a strong focus that in whatever we do, it's to help the community.
For example, every clubhouse was asked to create a video. One of our members made a video about abuse in the community and how to combat that,'' he said.
“At the summit, they have to invent something for a social need - like creating a water pump for people in Brazil.''
Youngsters attending the summit will visit the Boston Museum of Science, tour the Massachusetts Institute of Technology media labs and meet technical inventors.
Kataraina, who has been chosen to be one of the summit's opening speakers, said she enjoyed making videos and editing.
“I'm really excited, but scared too. Other kids should get involved too because it's cool,'' she said.
Mr Milne said Clubhouse 274, which started in 2005 with 10 members, had proven to be very popular among local young people.
“A lot of the members thought it was a geeky place, but ... it's not a class or anything, it's about doing stuff that they like. Some of them don't know about technology, but they know wrestling, so we say: Okay, let's make a video game','' he said.
Ofoi, Kataraina and Lars, who were all chosen for their leadership qualities, will fly to the US on Saturday.
Mr Milne said that giving young people opportunities such as these would allow for greater opportunities in the future. “We have to allow them to play, because playing is learning. It's not undirected - it's not a time-wasting thing. It's about being creative. Technology is just a tool.''
STUFF — MANUKAU COURIER — AUCKLAND — 28 FEB 2006
Maori school leads the way
By CATHERINE TOLI
New Zealand's first Maori bilingual secondary school has opened its doors. Te Whanau o Tupuranga in Otara was officially opened by Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta on Friday.
In May last year Te Whanau o Tupuranga was given approval to become a secondary school for students in years 7 to 13, marking the end of a three-year battle by Maori parents and students to continue education for years 11 to 13 students at the school.
"In 2001 we hosted the Ahurea Kapa Haka competition here and over the weeks of preparation we found ex-students coming to help who were no longer at the school," principal Ann Milne says.
"Their parents were here helping too. We compared stories and found they had similar experiences and after the competition approached the board to ask if these young people could return to Te Whanau o Tupuranga.
"For the next three years we struggled with bureaucracy and the Ministry of Education to ask continually `why not'?"
Ms Milne says the ministry's initial objections turned into support for the proposal.
Te Whanau o Tupuranga has a long history in which it has continually pushed the boundaries of education.
"Probably more than 2500 students have been members of this whanau since we first began in those days as a Taha Maori unit in 1986," Ms Milne says.
Te Whanau o Tupuranga became the first Maori bilingual intermediate unit in 1988 and started to take years 9 and 10 students, before Clover Park became the first middle school in the country seven years later.
Ms Milne says the bilingual school's guiding principle is whanau, or family, and aims to form a wraparound environment in which the school, home, students and teachers form strong relationships.
"Our aim is to create a family in the best sense of the word."
She does not believe students from the bilingual unit will have trouble adjusting to other settings, such as university, that are not so whanau-orientated.
"We have students who are very confident in themselves so are able to keep that confidence in whatever setting they go into."
Te Whanau o Tupuranga is on the same site as Clover Park Middle School, which has Samoan and Tongan and a Cook Island language enhancement classroom.
It now has 160 students and classrooms worth $18 million are expected to be finished by late next year.
The opening ceremony was attended by Maori Party co-leader Dr Pita Sharples, Mangere East MP Ross Robertson and National College of Education secondary school facilitator Te Kepa Stirling.
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