You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Meet Kiharoa Milroy
Job description:
I'm of Tūhoe and Ngāti Whakaue descent. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Te Reo Māori and Tikanga, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Teaching majoring in secondary school teaching. I live in Rotorua with my wife and my 2 boys, but we have just bought some land in Maketū, Bay of Plenty. I have many jobs, some paid, some I pay for.
I work for my iwi of Ngāti Whakaue running different types of wānanga and workshops with teachers from the schools in the local area. In these workshops I attempt to show them how the local pūrākau and history can be used as a foundation subject to drive the learning and feed into all other curriculum areas. I also work for Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology where I teach Reo Māori two nights a week.
My main mahi however, (at this stage), is to develop, build and implement a sustainable program which focuses on the cultural capabilities for Crown Research Institute, SCION. In addition to all of this I also run wānanga and Reo Māori classes for the marae, hapū and whānau of Maketū. This is one of the jobs that I pay for.
Favourite part of job:
The thing I love the most about all my mahi is when people start having fun with Reo Māori and grow the confidence to manipulate it to suit what they wish to express. I am all about helping people develop through Māori mediums and also using Māori mediums to bring people together.
A quick story about a job well done:
I recently held a wānanga in Maketū which was the fourth wānanga in a series of 6. In this wānanga I challenged people to step out (more like leap out), of their comfort zones and use what they had learnt from previous wānanga to run a full pōhiri process from start to finish including karanga and whaikōrero. For many of the participants this was the first time they had ever tried such a feat. This was done a number of times over the wānanga and I am proud to report the progress and success of the people of Maketū when taking on this challenge.
Interests outside work:
I enjoy the outdoors, camping, skydiving, swimming, adventure sports snow etc. Sometimes I just like to kick back and watch a good television series.
Kiharoa Milroy works for Ngāti Whakaue and SCION. Image: University of Waikato.