Tuku Reo Tuku Mouri - Te Reo Rangatira scholar Dean Kahu

Manutahi Marae chairman Dean Kahu knows all about the commitment needed to reclaim te reo Māori for his whānau, marae and iwi.

Last year he moved to Auckland to study te reo Māori fulltime in a one-year full immersion rumaki reo programme at Te Wānanga Takiura o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori o Aotearoa.

Dean and his wife Rondelle had prepared themselves for a tough year. He found part-time night work in Auckland –12-hour shifts from 8pm – while Rondelle stayed in Patea to continue running their rural mail business.

A couple of months after he started studying, he heard of the inaugural $50,000 2023 Parininihi ki Waitōtara (PKW) Te Reo Rangatira Scholarship aimed at tauira in fulltime, rumaki reo programmes. Candidates needed to be resident in Taranaki and return to Taranaki on completion of their programme to contribute back to the aspirations of Taranaki iwi whānui.

Dean, a former regular army soldier and police officer who in recent years has been instrumental in bringing community-based education programmes to Manutahi Marae, applied for the scholarship and was successful.

“Tino waimārie au,” he said. “He mihi nui tēnei ki Parininihi ki Waitōtara mō te koha. I’m very very grateful for that grant because it got me started. The funding really helped on this reo journey.”

Born and raised in the rohe of Pakakohi, and with whakapapa also to Ngāruahine, Ngāti Tama, Ngaa Rauru and Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Dean said he and his siblings were a product of generations affected by colonisation.

“We looked after the back, and we still do that. There was a real whakamā and sadness about trying to speak te reo. The way we were raised is a byproduct of colonisation. I want to change the narrative of my family ... whakamana the reo on the marae.”

He’s also strongly motivated by a desire to have his South Taranaki iwi, Pakakohi, more widely acknowledged and recognised.

“Growing up, we didn’t even know that Pakakohi existed. Pakakohi is a story of an iwi imprisoned as a whole for three years in 1869, who were removed from their land and who lost everything. Seventy-four men sentenced to hard labour in Dunedin, 18 died and were buried in paupers’ graves. This is a story that deserves to be more widely known.”

“The reo is an important part of standing up and speaking for us, fighting for recognition of Pakakohi tūpuna. What’s in my head in Pākehā, I want to get out in te reo Māori.”

Liana Poutu, Te Rau Manawaora, the PKW Trust Te Rau Toi Tauira/Chairperson describes the commitment from whānau in Taranaki reclaiming te reo Māori as inspirational.

“We saw whānau and friends so committed to te reo that they were giving up full-time employment and shifting to another rohe to regain te reo. That’s a big commitment and a big sacrifice. It shows there is such a love for our reo. We should always be trying to support whānau to regain te reo.”

Acknowledging the collaboration with the Toi Foundation, Liana says the trust was proud to be able to support te reo Māori revitalisation in Taranaki with two scholarships in 2023. Alongside Dean, Tiana Rarawa Capper, who was studying at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, was also awarded a PKW scholarship of $25,000.

The trust’s long-term vision is that scholarship recipients contribute to a bigger pool of te reo Māori speakers in Taranaki, influencing intergenerational language learning.

“If we have mātua who are fluent, they will be supporting their own tamariki mokopuna on their te reo journey. Our hope is that this will permeate through generations,” Liana says.

“I think that if our tūpuna had known what the impact of colonisation and not speaking te reo Māori to their tamariki mokopuna would be, they would have chosen a different path. This is our opportunty to contribute to the healing of that long-standing mamae. It may be small, but it’s still a contribution.”

After a year of rumaki reo, Dean is now much more confident to kōrero Māori. He’s passionate about how he can contribute to language revitalisation in Taranaki. And he’s decided to continue his te reo learning journey parttime this year in Auckland. This will allow him to return home throughout the year to continue his work on the marae before returning home for good.

“The reo changes so many things. One year wasn’t enough. It was the beginning, not the pinnacle. He pikinga poupou.”