Cousin cycles to Te Matatini for Smear Your Mea cancer cause

Teneka Pere, centre, at the beginning of her ride to Wellington.

Waipukurau's Onyx Beauty Salon owner Teneka Pere didn't own a bike and couldn't remember when she last rode one, when in November last year she decided to ride from Rotorua to Wellington.

She had some very strong motivation.

Pere's cousin, Talei Morrison, had been diagnosed with cervical cancer in August 2017. In June 2018 that cancer took her life.

Morrison was a known personality in the traditional Māori performing arts - kapa haka. In the nine months before her death she used that platform to start a campaign - Smear Your Mea (cervical smear) - to encourage Māori women to have a smear test.

Morrison was frustrated at not finding educational material that connected with Māori women, and she was determined to get the message out into Māori communities.

People from the Smear your Mea campaign attended many regional kapa haka events across Aotearoa, and at Morrison's funeral, her friend Tiria Waitai declared she would continue the campaign, aiming to have 100 per cent of the performers up-to-date with their smears by the the national kapa haka festival, Te Matatini ki Te Ao 2019.

To publicise the message, in February this year a group of cyclists led by Morrison's friend, former Māori party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell, led off from Morrison's final resting place at Kauae cemetery in Rotorua, heading to Te Matatini ki Te Ao in Wellington, spreading the Smear Your Mea message. In that group was Teneka Pere.

"In November Talei's uncle asked if I would do it," says Teneka.

"I didn't ride and I didn't have a bike. A friend offered me two road bikes and I decided 'I can do this'.

"Over Christmas it was crazy ... the salon was busy so I was getting up at 5.30am to cycle. I was working 12 hours and then cycling. I tried cycling to Pourerere, I tried cycling to Napier. I was very motivated.

"Talei was 41 when she was diagnosed, her children were grown up, she was fit and healthy and her career was going well.

"I am 40 next year, I have daughters and I had grandmothers who have died from cancer. I decided even if I had to get off my bike and walk, I was going to make that trip."

"When I was dropped off in Rotorua in February I met eight people I had never met before, and together we had six days to cycle to Wellington in time for the Te Matatini Powhiri on February 20.

"I loved the whole trip. The support along the way was amazing. We cycled, ate and slept - that was our job. We had a team behind the scenes feeding us and looking after us and managing the donations page - we were aiming for $3500 but we reached $12,800.

"We had no idea of the media attention we were getting, we just rode. We were escorted by police, by the Defence Force, and when we cycled into Wellington we were accompanied by 130 supporters.

"We seemed to create a vortex of aroha along the way."

Pere says she wanted to just "keep on biking ... I was on such a high".

And she has kept on biking. Clad in her Smear Your Mea biking outfit she is still cycling and spreading the message.

"And I would love to get together a group of women in CHB who want to cycle and get fit and healthy...it would be nice to have some biking buddies.

"We will possibly make the journey to Te Matatini an annual event," she says, "It was so successful on so many levels."