Ko te timatanga o te matauranga
Ko te wehi ki a lhowa
Maungarongo ki te mata o te whenua
Whakaaro nui ki te tangata

Tēnā koe e te tau ruamano mā ono. Ngā mihi manaaki ki a koutou, ngā kaipānui, mō ō koutou kaha ki te tautoko mai i te kaupapa, arā, ko te reo. Nō reira, e te iwi, kia kaha rā ki te kōrero i tō tātou reo rangatira. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Round Four is slowly winding down, with around 15 projects still underway. If you have a Round Four project with overdue milestones, please ensure that you know when they are due for completion and contact us immediately if you don’t think you will be able to complete these on time.

Round Five is rolling on. Out of a total of 152 projects 40 are completed and 112 are still underway. The last of these is due for completion in December 2006, so there is still a lot of mahi to do with regards to this Round. To those providers who have completed their Round Five projects, “Ngā mihi tino nui kia koutou”, especially those who have completed their projects on time and before the next funding round. For those of you who have overdue milestones for round five please contact us on 0800 628 373 or email maihi@tetaurawhiri.govt.nz to keep us informed with the progress of your project.

All eligible applications are currently being assessed. The first part of this process involves each member of Te Rōpū Tautoko (refer e-Pānui issue 5 February 2006) individually assessing and scoring your application. Once this is completed, the combined committee meets to make the final funding decisions. We plan to send letters out to all applicants informing them whether their applications have been approved or declined from the week beginning Monday 19 June. If your application is declined, we will provide you with a brief explanation as to why. We welcome requests for further, more specific detailed information, or advice about how your application could be strengthened in the future. We will always respond and endeavour to do so within two weeks of receipt of your request.

If you need to call the Mā Te Reo office (0800 628-373) to discuss any aspect of your project, please have your project ID number and project name available. Even better have your copy of your contract handy to refer to! This will make it easier for us to quickly locate your details on our database, and to answer your queries.

We have recently introduced a new step for new applicants wishing to make an on-line application. From Round Six on, the first step for new applicants is to register as a new user. Once you have keyed in all your registration details you will receive an email thanking you for registering and another confirming/approving your registration. The reason for this ‘moderated’ registration process is to enable Maihi to check that you/your organisation haven’t previously registered and therefore already have a user name and password. If this is the case, Maihi will contact you.

For those of you that may not have noticed we recently posted four new project profiles on the Mā Te Reo website (these were also distributed with Round Six application packs). The profiles are designed to provide snapshots of successfully completed Mā Te Reo projects. The four new profiles are:

Andy and Kath Sarich (Te Reo o Te Taitokerau) E Mara Mā! (ICT category)

Robert Te Whare (Mōkai Kāinga) and the Mōkai Kāinga Māori Centre Te Reo Classes (Language Programmes and Classes category)

Annett Grannetia (Haemata Ltd). He Kakano Haemata (Language Planning Category).

Those of you that have completed projects recently will have noticed we have changed the template that we use to gather data about your projects. Rather than one generic template, you are now asked to complete a template specific to your type of project. All questions are now relevant to your particular project. In order for us to collect important data about Mā Te Reo projects, you must complete every question. If you return incomplete templates, we will have to return them to you for completion and we will not be able to make final milestone payments until they are fully completed. Please take some time to complete these reports as they are one of our only means of gathering evidence about the positive impact Mā Te Reo is having in Māori communities.

2005/06 Research/Evaluation Project

Mā Te Reo kaimahi, Nerissa Aramakutu has been busy conducting interviews and survey questions for the language planning evaluation project. Just to recap, this project is looking at funding the development of community based Māori language plans. A focus group was held in March to discuss the development of potential assessment criteria and language planning principles. Attendees included those who have been involved in language planning for a number of years and Mā Te Reo providers who have been funded for language planning. It is anticipated that the evaluation project will be completed at the end of June 2006.

If you have a Mā Te Reo event coming up, you may want to consider putting it forward for possible promotion on MA TATOU, Māori Television’s iwi events programme. You can submit your event details to matatou@maoritelevision.com

Monitoring Visits

Mā Te Reo aims to get out to a different region every month. The purpose of these visits is to:

•  assist with monitoring contracts

•  meet you and other members of your whānau or group

•  get feedback from you about our administrative processes and how we can better support you

•  give you feedback and support.

During March, Mā Te Reo visited Te Tau Ihu for the first time. We met with all the project holders there and also caught up with new project holders in the Waikato region. Tino mī haro mātou i ngā momo tū mahi katoa.

A number of regions requested visits from the Mā Te Reo team to promote the programme during the lead up to Round Six. Te Puni Kokiri in Hamilton called a hui of key reo Māori players in the Waikato to come along and hear about what Mā Te Reo had to offer and to ask questions of the team. The session went very well and Te Puni Kokiri has indicated they would like a repeat visit again next year.

Also in March, the Reap Centre in Kaitaia hosted a Mā Te Reo workshop for prospective applicants. This was very much a ‘hands-on’ session with individuals using lap-tops to register with Mā Te Reo and begin to make their applications. A very useful exercise especially for those less computer savvy and making an on-line application for the first time.

In April, the team visited the Wairarapa Reap team to give a presentation on the programme to that community. This was followed by similar hui in Wairoa and Hastings. The benefits to the communities involved and to us the Mā Te Reo team, in getting out there kanohi-ki-te-kanohi are huge, and we aim to continue to respond to your requests for this type of interaction with us.

(Photo taken at the Wairoa presentation held at the Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga Taiwhenua, Friday 21 April 2006)

Request for reo Māori resources

One of our Mā Te Reo providers, Kaye Maree Dunn has been working closely with a newly established purapura (creche) known as Te Puna Oranga. Based in Feilding, the group is currently operating out of a whānau home with 10 tamariki, and purely on aroha and commitment to their kaupapa.

Kaye Maree has asked whether any of our Mā Te Reo funded resource developers would be interested in donating a kemu/pukapuka (games/books) etc. to the purapura, or in making resources available at cost for the tamariki o Te Puna Oranga.

Please send information/kemu/resources to:

Kaye-Maree Dunn
C/o Te Puna Oranga
Flat 5/14 Monckton Street
Feilding

Phone 029 249 6074