What is something you’re proud of?

Rebecca | Tāmaki Makaurau

Rebecca shares the challenges and deep sense of purpose behind her whānau’s move to Tāmaki, driven by a commitment to reclaiming te reo Māori and creating a better future for generations to come.

“We’re doing this to reclaim the kids’ and my husband’s language. We’re doing this so that in 30 years when we have mokopuna, they don’t have to do this.

I’m so proud of us for being here. This is not easy. We’ve moved away from our complete base in Christchurch, from our village – and we really used our village. We lived on a property in Ōtautahi with my parents, so moving the kids away from them has been really hard. Our three-year-old is used to going down to Nana’s every single day. It’s been really hard going down to one income and trying to navigate all of the systems and things like that. But I’m just so proud of us for doing it.

We’ve left our 11-year-old in Ōtautahi as well. He chose not to come to Tāmaki Makaurau. Since making the decision to reclaim my husband’s and my children’s language, our biggest motto has been to say yes to everything, even if it makes us super uncomfortable. And that means going to kura reo, going to friends’ marae, going to all of these different things that put us in really uncomfortable positions. But we’ve met the most amazing people along the way, we’ve learnt so much. We’re here and we’re doing it.

We’re doing this for the future generations, for the tamariki that aren’t here yet. We’re doing this so that my husband is the first person in his immediate whānau that will be fluent in his reo, will know his marae. Our kids will grow up with what he didn’t have. We’re doing it for his nan, who, when we first said that we were putting our pēpi into kōhanga, was like, ‘why would you do that?’ – because her mindset is still of the generation where she was told not to. So we’re doing it for all of those things. We’re not necessarily doing it for ourselves. We’re doing it for the future generations.”