Maranga mai Murihiku

By PSS | Posted: Thursday March 26, 2020

Maranga mai Murihiku previously known as the Te Whare Tu Te Whare Ora is an annual local Iwi led event that was held on the 23rd of February at the ILT Stadium Southland. This community event aims to support suicide prevention through connecting with others and building relationships through activities like sharing korero and waiata.

For a number of years, we have been getting together to start our day with karakia and waiata. All staff on the Spey Street site are welcome to come. In more recent years we have been led by Matua Rusty who comes in every morning to join with us and to provide us with guidance and support.

At this year’s event we made our second appearance (the first time at the Workingmens Club in 2017). We sang 5 different waiata that we frequently sing in the mornings as a group before mahi.

The team were very anxious and excited in the lead up before the event as we knew there would be some great teams there who would be far better versed in Te Reo and performing waiata than us, but we reinforced ourselves by the thought of what the event was about and that our appearance alongside others from the community was a great way to show our support to a great cause. With the support from friends and whanau our brave team got up on the stage and performed brilliantly to win the peoples vote, taking home the People’s Choice Award.

Lorna Allott one of our social workers who assisted in the organisation of our staff for the event said “It was very scary for all of us, but we made it on stage again and were in total disbelief that we won the People’s Choice Award for our performance. We are very humbled and very motivated to keep growing our roopu (group) and our range of waiata to prepare again for next year’s event”.

Congratulations to all of the staff involved in bringing this event together. The effort and dedication put in to support this important event and in addition to this to win the People’s Choice Award was outstanding. We also would like to give special thanks to Matua Rusty for his ongoing guidance, support and dedication to our team not only for the event but his commitment to our team on a daily basis.