WHO IS IT FOR? Schools, Kura, Early Childcare, librarians and learning assistants within our Community of Learning.
WHY? To ensure that our local histories are told with the full weight of combined school archives , local museum content, local iwi, public library and people within the Cambridge Community.
WHAT WILL IT CREATE? The project will be able to help teachers, Kaiako, librarians and learning assistants create a deeper understanding of what is happening now, to support learners.
BY WHEN? To be completed by December 2023
Maaori history is the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa New Zealand. Māori have been settling, storying, shaping, and have been shaped by these lands and waters for centuries. Māori history forms a continuous thread, directly linking the contemporary world to the past. It is characterised by diverse experiences for individuals, hapū, and iwi within underlying and enduring cultural similarities.
Colonisation and its consequences have been central to our history for the past 200 years and continue to influence all aspects of New Zealand society. Colonisation began as part of a worldwide imperial project. In Aotearoa New Zealand, it sought to assimilate Māori through dislocation from their lands and replacement of their institutions, economy, and tikanga with European equivalents. It is a complex, contested process, experienced and negotiated differently in different parts of Aotearoa New Zealand over time. In its varying forms, colonisation – including privileges deriving from it and the enduring assertions of tino rangatiratanga and mana Māori – continues to evolve.
The course of Aotearoa New Zealand’s history has been shaped by the exercise and effects of power. Individuals, groups, and organizations have exerted and contested power in ways that have improved the lives of people and communities, and in ways that have led to damage, injustice, and conflict. Ideologies and beliefs, from within and beyond Aotearoa New Zealand, underpin expressions of power and resistance and insisting on rights and identity.