Jenga with te reo twist

Hēnga was played for the first time on Monday to celebrate Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. Pictures supplied

Rangatahi of Tāiki e Next Gen have created a fun and different way of learning te reo Māori — a new game called Hēnga. 

It’s Jenga with a twist. The giant blocks have different questions around te reo Māori me ōna tikanga (the Māori language and culture) that make learning the language interactive and fun.

Taiki e! Next gen is all about youth leadership, innovation and social enterprise. It has people from ages 14-24 and they meet every Monday from 3.30 to 5pm at the Taiki e! whare in Treble Court.

A few weeks back they were considering what they’d do to celebrate Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori.

Two ideas were chosen — the Loose Leaf Zine project (in Wednesday’s Gisborne Herald) and making giant Jenga blocks with reo Māori challenges written on them.

Imagine in summertime, walking through Treble Court and being able to stop and play this game to learn something about te reo Māori.

Seven rangatahi — Maria Wynne, Fiona Roselyn, Nattida Martin, Atahu Kohere, Raphael Colucci, Riley Kerehoma and Niki Pewhairangi — were involved in creating the game.

Colour-coded blocks represent different levels of difficulty. The white ones are easier, the brown/red ones are medium and the black ones are all in te reo Māori

Steph Barnett, who supports the rangatahi leaders, asked Hikurangi Enterprises if they had any offcuts of wood they could use.

Always keen to support the community, the company not only gave the wood but cut the pieces to size and found out how many would be needed.

After some sanding and varnishing, the rangatahi used the laser cutter at the Haututu Hacklab to carve the questions into the wooden blocks.

They played it for the first time on Monday to celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori and the game was out in Treble Court for the community to play during te wa tuku reo, the Māori language moment at 12 noon yesterday.

It is played like a regular game of Jenga, but when a piece is pulled out there is a question on it related to te reo Māori.

It might say something like “name an atua Māori”, or “hum or sing a waiata Māori”.

“It’s a way for anyone with any knowledge of te reo Māori to get involved and learn different parts of it.

“It’s a different way to learn. You don’t always need to learn from books — we can learn from each other and it’s a way to promote te reo Māori,” Steph said.

■ Hēnga (noun) translates as error, mistake, fault, blunder, boo-boo, slip up.