Tēnei au ka noho mānukanuka ki te whare o whakaaro nui. Ka toko ake te whakaaro, hei āhea motuhake ai te mana o tōku reo ki tōna anō whenua!!!
I recently worked on a collaborative project with my brother to produce some safety signage in Te Reo Māori for a local kura he was doing some work in. What started out as a cool project, turned in to a catalyst for some deep discussion and wānanga around what our vision for our pakihi is, and most importantly what our matāpono are too.
Te Horopaki
My brother is a fellow entrepreneur & recently self-employed as an electrician. He has been working in some local kura in the area and when he was asked if the signage was available in Te Reo Māori. He quickly gave me a call and thus the collaborative project began. My brother showed me some of the signage he was installing & the job seemed straight forward enough: Backlit EXIT signs to be used with standard safety lighting and standard EXIT signs. He even bought over some of the existing signs for me to look at as a reference. He left me with the samples and I made a start on the designs - maramara keke. Later that evening he sent me a copy of the New Zealand Building Code Clause F8 to make sure the signs I produce would be up to standards and pass the building inspection. This is when it all went sideways and my blood started to boil!
I had every expectation that there would be obvious standards for font sizes, colours etc but I wasn’t prepared for what I would see around language requirements. According to the standard “Signs shall be one of the following:
a) A pictogram alone, or
b) English text with or without a pictogram, or
c) Māori text plus English text or a pictogram, or both, or
d) Any other language, including Braille, plus one of a), b) or c).”
What I took from this was - You can have an EXIT sign in English with just the word EXIT on it and this would be acceptable. However, you can not have the same sign in Te Reo Māori WITHOUT also having the English translation and/or a pictogram. Basically - Te Reo Māori does not hold the same mana as English. How is it that Te Reo Māori is an official language in Aotearoa, but our language can not stand alone? Even in a kura kaupapa where there is every expectation that all staff and students speak Te Reo Māori, there is still an expectation that our language is not enough on its own.
To add fuel to the flames my brother later told me that the signage is actually quite hard to source in Te Reo Māori, and is significantly more expensive. In fact the same sign can cost up to 3 times more in Te Reo Māori, and this often puts a lot of people off purchasing these as it is too expensive. I have seen this first hand with my son’s kōhanga having chosen to stay with pictorial signs to keep costs down. This saddens me because we are having to compromise on our culture for the sake of money. This made me take a good look at our matāpono (values), and our reason WHY.
Although it would be easy to see this as an opportunity to capitalise and make a lot of money, I reminded myself of our kīanga “e hua mai nei ko Te Reo Māori”, which loosely translates as “let Te Reo Māori be the [main] outcome”. I didn’t set out to do this to become a millionaire, I set out to do this to make Te Reo Māori more accessible to kura, and whānau. I made a deliberate and conscious decision NOT to do bilingual rauemi, or to offer any English based design services. I wanted Te Reo to be as mainstream as Te Reo Pākehā, to be normal, to be visible, and to be affordable. Nothing that I sell is priced for profit's sake, which is a really poor business model I’ll admit. But the point is, I take only what I need & no more. The pay off is simply knowing that Te Reo is being shared into kura and homes, and I get to do something I really enjoy - creating.
Which brings me to my final decision on marketing these rauemi, because I know there will be many of you wanting to order for your own kura, marae and workplaces. If you are based in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) you can order these items directly through my brother at Terry Myers Electrical, who will also install these for you too. It’s a win-win for me that I get to support my brother, and also piece of mind knowing that these items will be correctly installed according to H&S regulations and building standards. you can contact him via mobile: 021 661 131 or e-Mail: terrymyerselectrical@gmail.com.
If you’re based outside of Tāmaki you can contact us directly at admin@HUARAU.com to discuss your needs. We will happily to organise a solution to suit your needs and have these couriered out to your property manager for installation.
Hei Whakarapopoto
Kei a tātou tonu te mahi nui e horapa noa te ao ki tō tātou Reo Rangatira. Kia kaua tātou e noho noa me te amuamu mo ēnei tū āhuatanga. Me whaiwhai, me wānanga, me tohe. Nō nanahi noa iho Te Reo Pākeha, ēngari ko Te Reo Māori te reo taketake o tēnei whenua.
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