Te reo Māori on the frontline of the Covid-19 pandemic

Tuesday, 14 September 2021

Te Korowai Hauora o Hauraki’s Riana Manuel, left, and Janine Thompson, at a Coromandel Covid-19 testing station in August.

In the opening hours of this latest Covid-19 outbreak, fear and anxiety suddenly struck residents in the usually sleepy streets of Coromandel Town after it was revealed as a location of interest.

Early the following morning, and for the rest of the week, residents turned out in their hundreds to get tested. Fortunately, no positive results were returned.

Te Korowai Hauora o Hauraki, a rural iwi-based health service provider that has centres right across the Hauraki rohe, was on the frontline in Coromandel throughout that initial period of unease, its staff working long hours to test as many people as possible.

That meant te reo Māori was also on the frontline.

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Aotearoa’s native language was being used to greet people as they arrived at Covid-19 testing stations – “Kia ora, kei te pēhea koe?”

Te reo was also visible on the marquees, cars and van of Te Korowai Hauora o Hauraki. People only had to look at the name of the organisation to understand what it represented – a cloak of health and wellbeing.

Nurse Riana Manuel, manukura hauora (chief executive) of Te Korowai Hauora o Hauraki, was on the ground testing residents during those stressful opening days of the outbreak and said te reo – and the values that sit in behind the language – brought comfort and connection to the community.

“The feedback we always get from people is that they feel that sense of manaakitanga – that ability to look after and care for people,” she said.

Riana Manuel, manukura hauora (chief executive) of Te Korowai Hauora o Hauraki, marshals traffic at a Covid-19 testing station in Coromandel Town in August.

“They hear it, they see it in action, and it’s really authentic. And I believe that all comes down to the language we use, the way we behave, and the values that we take forward – being manaakitanga, whanaungatanga and kotahitanga … we saw it every day on the line.”

Manuel (Ngāti Pūkenga ki Manaia, Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Kahungunu) said you don’t even have to understand everything a person is saying in te reo to be affected by it.

“If you think about how it makes New Zealanders feel, for instance, when we see the Black Ferns do their haka after they got their gold medals, whether you understood every word inside that haka or not, what you inherently understood was a sense of nationhood, of wellbeing, of collective achievement.”

That was what te reo Māori brought to the Covid-19 frontline in Coromandel.

Poutiri Trust general manager Kirsty Maxwell-Crawford.

“You stand there and you understand that, in that moment, we are collectively here together to achieve whatever it is.”

Te reo Māori has played an equally important role during lockdown.

Te Puke-based Poutiri Trust ran drive-through vaccination centres and provided Covid-19 testing and other community services and support during alert level 4 and alert level 3.

The trust, which operates throughout the Western Bay of Plenty, also runs a medical centre and is a Whānau Ora provider.

“For us, it’s really important to make sure that te reo is included in everything that we do, but in lockdown it became even more essential,” general manager Kirsty Maxwell-Crawford (Tapuika, Ngāi Tai) said.

“It was about making sure that whānau were able to easily connect to the underlying values of manaaki, whanaungatanga, whakapapa, and to be able to feel those values in action … te reo is a great vehicle to do that.”

The trust brought in kaiako and kaiāwhina from local kōhanga reo to help on the frontline during lockdown, “and they were often the first ones that would greet and guide whānau through”.

Hori Ahomiro, pou tikanga at Poutiri Trust, receiving his second dose of the Covid-19 vaccination in August.

“The utilisation of whānau who are known, who are connected to the community, and who also speak te reo, does give organisations such as ours and other hauora providers an ‘X-factor’ because that’s another way to engage with whānau and ensure that our services are accessible and demonstrate manaaki from the get-go.”

Maxwell-Crawford said the feeling of connection that te reo facilitates doesn’t only apply to people who literally understand the language.

“Because when te reo Māori is delivered within the context of our values, it’s a language that’s felt and not necessarily one that has to be understood.”

Hori Ahomiro, pou tikanga at Poutiri Trust, said the organisation has a kīwaha – Ko whānau ora te pūtake o te hauora Māori.

“Translated, it basically means whānau ora, or whānau wellbeing, is the root cause of Māori health,” Ahomiro (Tapuika) said.

Ikimoke Tamaki-Takarei, director of tikanga at Waikato District Health Board.

He said that saying encapsulates why Poutiri Trust exists as an organisation.

“Te reo plays a big part, and it’s not a weekly thing like we’re having this week, it’s an everyday thing.”

Ikimoke Tamaki-Takarei, a Waikato iwi leader and director of tikanga at Waikato District Health Board, said it is important to remember each kupu means a lot more than its literal translation.

He said every word in te reo Māori carries a deeper cultural meaning and protocol – “te reo me ōna tikanga” as the saying goes.

Therefore, Tamaki-Takarei said, when te reo Māori is clearly audible and visible somewhere like a vaccination centre, it can transform the environment and people’s experience of that environment.

He said a tongikura, sent out by the Māori King, Tūheitia, as Aotearoa was grappling with the first Covid-19 outbreak last year, has remained at the foundation of vaccination centres across Waikato.

Amohia ake te ora o te iwi, ka puta ki te whei ao. The care for our people is paramount, we will get through this.

“We are here for the wellbeing of the people. So in our vaccination centres we’ve created these roles called kaimanaaki, and their role is to nurture anybody who walks inside our whare,” Tamaki-Takarei said.

People are greeted in te reo Māori and then English, “straight away, by hearing that soft, warm greeting many people engage way differently”.

“I would say that’s 70 per cent of the experience. Of course, we still have a lot of people who are not quite ready to accept that change, but that’s fine, the kaimanaaki still must uphold the manaakitanga of te reo and not react.”

Tamaki-Takarei said it is also important to maintain balance between te reo Māori and English, and not be forceful with the language.

“Everything has to be translated, there has to be an opportunity to understand what those Māori kupu are.”

Jason Moses, the Ministry of Health’s group manager of equity for the Covid-19 vaccine and immunisation programme, said te reo Māori has played “an integral role” in the rollout of New Zealand’s vaccination campaign.

“Te reo Māori speakers on the frontline across our providers help whānau to communicate in their preferred language and therefore feel more comfortable when getting vaccinations.”

Moses said the ministry has also worked in collaboration with Iwi Communications Collective, Te Puni Kōkiri, Te Hiringa Hauora, Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori and Māori Media Network to produce te reo Māori content across a number of platforms.