NZ Cook Islanders mark 9 years of language celebrations

2020 marks the 9th year Cook Island communities across Aotearoa New Zealand are celebrating their language week.

According to Statistics NZ, 20 percent of the Pacific population in New Zealand are from the Cook Islands.

This year's theme is Kia pūāvai tō tātou reo Māori Kūki 'Āirani i Aotearoa, which translates to, 'that the Cook Islands Māori language may blossom throughout New Zealand'.

The Hamilton Cook Island Association has been in operation for over 40 years.

They have planned a variety of activities throughout the week including a social media challenge, where people can upload content via Facebook or Tiktok of themselves speaking the language [Reo].

HAMCIA has also put a twist on the television cooking show My Kitchen Rules to celebrate Pacific cuisine called 'My Kuki-Are Rules'.

Walter Tuakana from HAMCIA said it was very competitive with the HAMCIA drummers the reigning champions for two years in a row.

"There's a wide range of foods in the Pacific and each team has to use those ingredients and incorporate it into a dish," he said.

He said it was the same rules as the TV show - 90 minutes to cook, with no pre-cooking.

"I belong to the HAMCIA Drummers team and it's actually quite a hard challenge because with Cook Island cuisine, some dishes like the Poke take hours to cook, so this competition really pushes you to be creative with our traditional foods."

Tuakana said it was important to find engaging activities that would encourage Cook Islanders to speak in their native tongue.

"There are stats out there that only 12 percent of Cook Islanders know how to speak the Reo fluently so it's good to upskill our younger generation."

There are over 500 Cook Island people in the Manawatu region of New Zealand.

Annie Scoon, 74, is retired, but in her spare time runs Cook Island language classes in Palmerston North.

"We went from two male students to now 16 students in the class," she said.

"My caregiver and I reflected on our childhood and tried to remember the first thing that our parents would teach us and it was a prayer, so that was the first thing we taught in our class, to learn the Lord's prayer, and then our anthem."

A week of festivities have been planned such as learning the language, ukelele and drums, health checks and learning about the Ei Katu (floral head piece) and tivaevae (traditional artistic quilt).

"The aim is to encourage people attending to speak in Reo, so when they are in the cooking class or getting their diabetes checked or making the Ei Katu, they are to talk in the Cook Island language," Scoon said.

In Hastings, Flaxmere Primary School would normally have lunch provided for them, but as their principal Robyn Isaacson shared, it would be different at the end of the week.

"We're a lunches school, so we get lunches provided to us, but we're not doing it through our normal caterers. We'll be using the Cook Island community centre and they're going to do traditional Cook Island food," she said.

Ms Isaacson said it was important to the school to celebrate different cultures.

"It's important because we want our children to be aware of other peoples' cultures and this will provide that empathy and understanding and cultural competency for our children."

A Cook Island Youth Leader in Whanganui was hosting a beach clean-up in response to plastic pollution in the Pacific and world-wide.

This is Jasmine Ariata Kiri's first time running such an event at Castlecliff Beach and she said she wanted to do something meaningful to celebrate the language week.

"Our coral reef, oceans and marine animals are suffering because of plastic and waste and it affects the seas in the Cook Islands," she said.

"I wanted to get the community together and allow people to have the opportunity to make a difference and do something good for the environment.

"I have activities planned too to help promote the Cook Island language."

The team of volunteers will also be doing some planting in sand dunes with Progress Castlecliff to help maintain the sand dunes.