Maori Women's Welfare League Conference at Tauranga

Te Ao Hou, September 1967, Page 32

Miss Wallscott presents the Te Puea trophy to representatives of Rotorua District Council. Maori Women's Welfare League Conference at Tauranga Mr N. P. K. Puriri challenges the delegates to prepare for the future. Tauranga turned on delightful weather for the annual Maori Women's Welfare League Conference held there from 10–13 July. Delegates from all over the country were so impressed with the weather that one South Islander declared that as soon as she arrived home she would ‘sell up’ and then ‘shift up here’. The warmth of the welcome from the local people, led by Mr Haare Piahana, and shown first at the welcoming dinner at Hairini Pa, set the tone for the whole conference. During the opening ceremony at the Town Hall, speeches were made by the Mayors of Tauranga and Mt Maunganui, Mr N. Kirk, Leader of the Opposition. Sir Walter Nash, Mr M. Rata, Mrs I. Ratana, Mrs W. Tirikatene-Sullivan and Mr G. A. Walsh, who opened the Conference on behalf of the Minister of Maori Affairs, Mr J. R. Hanan, and added his own welcome as M.P. for Tauranga. The president, Mrs Ruiha Sage gave her presidential address on Tuesday morning, reporting on her tours, meetings attended, and the proposed revision of the League's constitution. Mr Charles Bennett, Assistant Secretary for Maori Affairs, spoke in the afternoon.

paying tribute to the achievements of the past and drawing attention to the ‘Maori casualties in the field of education’, the ‘few at the top and many at the bottom of the educational ladder’, and the ‘need to promote a much greater degree of togetherness and oneness between the two racial groups which live in this country’. Following this, Mrs Murphy, Mayoress of Murupara, and Mrs H. Potaka presented on behalf of Murupara Isolated Branch a beautifully carved waka huia to hold the Dominion President's Chain of office. Guest speaker was Mrs M. J. Drayton, principal of Tauranga Girls' College, who defined ‘education’ as ‘the passing on to the young by the old the sort of things considered important by the old’. She stressed that education should not only instruct the child for a means of livelihood but also teach her a way of life based on a set of values. She compared the Maori family's value of co-operation with the Pakeha family's value of competitiveness, saying that although they were both good they were different and that families must try to marry the two sets of values. Maori families couldn't put Pakeha values away and turn their backs on them, neither could they throw over their Maori values and adopt Pakeha ones—this was not sensible. She stressed that it was Delegates in the grounds of the Mission House at Tauranga. Mrs M. Te Kawa of Tokomaru Bay with her kuia, 92-year-old Mrs Ngaropi White. not only Maori families that needed to work out these values, realise and use two sets. The answers given that evening by a panel of eight pupils from the four local secondary schools to questions from chairman Mr M. Te Hau, produced possibly the most exciting session of the conference. (See Younger Readers' Section). Their intelligent approach to difficult problems, their broad outlook and their determination to hold on to their Maoritanga earned high praise. In a most businesslike Wednesday morning

Mr Haare Piahana and Mrs Ruiha Sage plant a tree at Gate Pa. President and vice-presidents of the League, Mrs M Te Kawa, Mrs R. Sage and Mrs M. Penfold. session, the remainder of the 40 remits were dealt with, this efficiency earning the president's thanks. After lunch Mr N. P. K. Puriri addressed the delegates on ‘Planning for the Future’. In outlining conditions likely to arise by the year 2,000, when there would be five million New Zealanders, one of every seven being a Maori, he suggested that the majority of Maori people would live in towns and monopolise the unskilled areas of industry, family ties would be broken, and the institution of the tangi would be a thing of the past. Giving an indication of the scientific wonders we can expect in the next 40 years, Mr Puriri showed the necessity of making a choice—either to ignore these trends, give up, or prepare for the future. He stressed the need for educated and skilled people, for better understanding, for the ‘re-building of our society on the basis of self-confidence, selfrespect and dignity’, for family spacing and good child-rearing practices, and the need to participate at all levels of society. ‘Accept the challenge of the future and be masters of your own destiny,’ he said. ‘Whaia te iti Kahurangi i na tuohu koe hei maungateitei.’ Further discussion of the proposed constitution completed the afternoon, and in the evening Miss Wallscott presented Rotorua D.C. with the Te Puea trophy, and Morrinsville I.B. with the Penrhyn Island trophy, after the judge, continued at foot of page 24