On May 16, the 2024 St Mary’s O’Shea Team left for Sacred Heart College Napier for the annual O’Shea Shield competition with the theme “Sparks of Hope - Te Ahi Kā”. We were welcomed with a pōwhiri by the school organisers upon arriving at Napier and settled at our accommodation at Napier Beach Top 10 Holiday Park.

On Friday, we supported Jane Isaako and Kahurangi Douglas while they both did great readings for the English and Te Reo Scripture Reading, respectively. They calmly presented their scripture to the adjudicators and although there was no applause, we showed our encouragement by proudly proclaiming, “Thanks be to God” in response to their readings. We also supported Sophia Rosa, the youngest in the team, during her captivating Junior prepared speech about ‘Reading fiction’. Then we had the honour of being an audience for Jessica Tupai’s empowering speech on the power of youth voice and the responsibility to be the ‘voices of today’. Her speech placed her first in her section! We supported Victoria Watson for the Impromptu Speech on her hope and appreciation for future generations. For the last event of the day, after a pizza dinner, we had the long-awaited Religious Drama event. The O’Shea drama team comprised Norrie Williams, Violet Durno, Potesio Vea, Danielle Kaio, and Sahana Bharadwaj. They presented a powerful performance named “Raided”, depicting the Dawn Raids, the present-day parallels and hopes for the future.

After a late night, the next day of events had come. The day's first event was Debating, which ended with a St Mary’s win on the affirmative side against Havelock North High School after debating the moot “in disaster-prone areas, this house would replace all reconstruction efforts with direct cash transfers to affected civilians”.The team consisted of first speaker Olivia Napp, who delivered a strong definition of the moot and foundation for their argument and ended with a winning leader’s reply. Aeryn Lao came in with some rebuttal and more meat to their argument. Julia Toma delivered the final blow, deconstructing the opposing team’s arguments and logically disproving them. Finally, the last event, Religious Questions, arrived, which resulted in the team winning first place in their section for the first time in 15 years. The team comprised Milla Rose Klausen, Yasanya Fernando, Jael Laroza and Carmel Fernandes, who was our reserve. After many weeks of meeting with our coach Donne Sklenars, and studying the documents “Fratelli Tutti” and “A Letter to Young People”, we, albeit nervously, answered the questions of the adjudicators passionately.

The O’Shea Shield ended with a beautiful mass with all 17 schools and prize giving. We celebrated with all the schools and congratulated all the winners, especially the co-winners of the O’Shea Shield; St Patrick’s College Wellington and St Peter’s College. After saying farewell to all our new friends and the memories we made, we spent the last day and night of the weekend resting and celebrating a successful weekend! Thank you to Ms Gray, Mrs Clarke, Ms McNaughton and Ms McKenzie for taking the team away and looking after us for the weekend.

Written by Jael Laroza