Te Hau Tawhiti wins #1miriona wero

Te Hau Tawhiti from Australia has won The Great Te Māngai Pāho Video Challenge, securing the $10,000 cash prize, for their commitment to te reo Māori.

The winner of The GREAT Te Māngai Pāho Video Challenge
Te Māngai Pāho is delighted to announce an Australian entry Te Hau Tawhiti as the winner of the $10,000 prize of The Great Te Māngai Paho Video Challenge. Te Hau Tawhiti, a Brisbane based group, displayed their commitment to continuing their reo learning journey by using apps, watching Māori Television online and participating in kapahaka. The Great Te Māngai Pāho Video Challenge was part of the #1miriona campaign that was the first multi-channel social media campaign to promote te reo Māori to New Zealanders living here and abroad. The goal of the Te Māngai Pāho initiative was to engage more than a million Māori language supporters with content that people like, engage with and share. In the end #1miriona exceeded its goals with more than two million social media interactions of which the Great Te Māngai Pāho Video Challenge generated 572,595 engagements. So great was the awareness in #1miriona that we saw interest in the Maori language on Facebook increase from 900,000 monthly active users to 1.5 million active users during September. The #1miriona campaign was founded in the concept “E ora ai te reo – whiua ki te ao! For a language to live – it needs to be shared with the world”. When Ngoi Pewhairangi wrote ‘Whakarongo’ and the words “Whiua ki te ao, whiua ki te rangi, whuia ki nga iwi katoa”, she was on the button. #1miriona
Posted by Te Māngai Pāho on Thursday, November 1, 2018

The Brisbane-based group was established as a mechanism for Māori living in Australia to stay connected to their Māoritanga despite being miles away from their tūrangawaewae. They execute this through the means of haka, waiata, social festivities as well as focusing on their respective te reo Māori journeys.

Te Hau Tawhiti “Hautopea te rākau ārai Uru mai te hau tawhiti Haere, tiki atu i tō Ao” Ko te tino whainga o te roopu...
Posted by Te Hau Tawhiti on Monday, September 24, 2018

Te Waikamihi Korohina Ormsby who is a member of Te Hau Tawhiti says the video was created to showcase the challenges Māori face while living abroad.

"We really wanted to show the people at home some of the things we go through and how hard it is to continue learning te reo over here. "

The Great Te Māngai Pāho Video Challenge was part of the #1miriona social media campaign to promote te reo Māori to New Zealanders all over the world.

Te Māngai Pāho established this campaign to get more than one million te reo Māori supporters engaged with the language. They exceeded their goal with more than 2 million interactions on social media.

Ormsby says, "We are so grateful and blessed with this opportunity and it's set something for us to continue our journey."

The concept of this campaign was, “E ora ai te reo – whiua ki te ao! For a language to live – it needs to be shared with the world.”

Being a newly established kapa haka group Ormsby says they plan to use their prize money on resources and kākāhu they may need for the future.