Baby Ardern gets first game

Author Tommy Kapai presents te reo game to PM. Photo / Supplied

Tommy Kapai presents Jacinda Ardern with the first signed copy of his new game and book, Koha.

Baby Neve Ardern Gayford is the first child in New Zealand to receive a new game designed to normalise te reo Māori in Aotearoa.

The game's creator, author and local celebrity Tommy Kapai, presented the game and the first copy of a signed accompanying book to Neve's mother, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, last week in Auckland, telling her it is the world's first indigenous game.

The game, Koha, is being launched to the public today via Z garage in Bethlehem, and will be available from Z garages and online.

Kapai chose Z garage owned by fellow Tauranga philanthropists Dave and Lynette Gillies as a distribution outlet as he says it is a a game families can play travelling in the car. The book also comes with colouring pencils named with colours in te reo.

Always passionate about encouraging people to learn about their turangawaewae (place to stand), Kapai said the idea came about when his own mother told him she wasn't allowed to speak te reo at school.

"At school we learned about foreign places and foreign names but not what is in our own backyard. There is a real thirst for knowing about our culture and the key to that is through our language. Sadly te reo, like other indigenous languages of the Aborigines and Red Indians and others, have disappeared. It is time to bring them back, and the time is now."

The game is a card game with a map, with each card relating to a place in Aotearoa.

Players will have to know the word, where it is and pronounce it. There are also Wero challenge cards and Maui trickster cards.

Kapai said the game is also a taonga, a tool for knowledge which he expects will be used in school resources. He presented the game last week at a conference of more than 1500 educators, together with Core Education, his partners in the game.

"Koha means gift and this is our gift to students to learn more about who they are and where they are from.

Kapai said te reo is people's connection to the land. "Imagine those in Remuera knowing it actually means hemlock of a princess. That in Tauranga, it means we live in a safe haven. It is precious taonga that we need to pass on but in a fun way."

After its New Zealand launch Kapai plans to roll out the Koha game internationally and has plans for similar games using the Aborigine language.

He said the game has been a long time in the making with many people involved, and noted in particular the creative contribution of designer Andrea and her son Milan who has illustrated the book.