A group of our year 10 students were fortunate enough to travel to Pōneke earlier this month to participate in a learners hip and global citizenship workshop…

Te Rangitāmiro ki Pōneke

On the night of the 12th of October, nearing the end of the school holidays, nine excited pononga and three kaiārahi from Te Puna Karikari were eagerly awaiting their flight to Wellington the next morning.

Day 1

8:30am that next day, Keanu Turner walks to the AirNZ check-in to greet Kōkā Hera. One by one, pononga arrived dressed to impress in their number ones with their whānau in tow. A quick mihi and ka kite to their whānau as the whānau walked out of the airport calling out their aroha for their tamaiti and we embarked on our haerenga to the capital for a rangatahi conference on what it is to be a global citizen.The first day of the two day wānanga saw the pononga join with rangatahi from all around Aotearoa to do whakawhanaungatanga games, listen to key note speakers, and they even had the opportunity to create their own 3D printed taonga.

We finished day one off with a yum cha dinner at Dragons restaurant and let off some energy at Timezone. The boys spent 90% of the time at Timezone trying to beat each others scores on the punching bag. Keanu was the champion of the night beating the overall high score!

"My highlights from the trip was meeting new people, making new friends, the 3D printing of our taonga, the fear factory, dragons restaurant kai and the atmosphere. At dinner was how we got to know each other. Like the boys from the Bay of Plenty and Whakatane." - Morehu Hazel

Day 2

We were lucky enough to have buffet breakfast at our accommodation, so we were ready for day two! We went back to our venue which was the Wharewaka Function Centre on the water front in Wellington. Here the pononga were split into groups and had to come up with a hypothetical programme for a group of year 10 students from overseas to come to Aotearoa and experience our Māori culture. After this we sat through more keynote speakers and business pitches from the university students that were also apart of our wānanga.Later that night we returned to the venue for our formal dinner where they had a small band play and had paua pattie appetisers. Yummmy! The formal dinner was very nice and we got to go out afterwards to Fear Factory for some fun.

"My highlights from our trip was; we were always late, we went to a fancy restaurant, we went timezone and won a lot of tickets, we had a formal dinner, we listened to the speakers that were speaking, we got to know some people - whakawhanaungatanga, we went to Te Papa, and I liked our accommodation. My favourite memory was when we went to fear factory and I mimi'd my pants hahaha."- Te Raukura Tawhana-Tuivaga

Day 3

We got to have a little sleep in before we went on our last sightseeing around Wellington. We went to the beehive to have a look around, but the security guards said we had to book in beforehand so we just took a photo outside and then went to Te Papa.At Te Papa we got to look around at the different exhibitions like the Gallipoli one and the science one. Kōkā Hera, Renata & Wi made it to the top floor where the marae & the treaty is. Wi convinced his little ope to go outside and managed to lock himself outside in a no-go area. The security guard had to come and free him, but it was a funny experience and he was all good.We made our way back to the airport and got Subway for lunch before boarding our flight back to Christchurch.

"My highlights from the trip was making new friends, meeting new people, learning about new opportunities like the Jacinda Ardern scholarship to take people abroad, hanging out at timezone. I liked the formal dinner and how everyone was dressed up in fancy clothes. And my favourite memory was of our final goodbye with Are (other rangatahi from workshop) and all that when they were about to leave on the airplane and we found them. What I didn't like about the trip was how short the trip was." - Wi-Xavier Jones-Fiso 

A huge mihi to everyone that supported us to get to Wellington with all our different fundraisers and just your tautoko all together!! He mihi nui kia koutou katoa. Look out for our highlights video coming in a few weeks!

Ngā mihi nui, Te Rōpū o Te Rangitāmiro