Hastings school holds mini march to support Hīkoi mō te Tīriti in Wellington

Pupils from Omāhū School march in support of Hīkoi mō te Tīriti. Photo / Jack Riddell

• Omāhū School in rural Hastings held a hīkoi to support Hīkoi mō te Tīriti.
• Principal Kate Crawford said the march aimed to empower students and celebrate their Māori culture.
• The school, devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle, is being rebuilt and hopes to open new classrooms in 2025.

A small school in rural Hastings couldn’t take their pupils down to Wellington to show their support for Hīkoi mō te Tīriti, so they marched themselves.

Omāhū School principal Kate Crawford said that the hīkoi was to teach the tamariki to be “proud to be who they are and where they come from”.

“It’s actually about them because they are the now and we’ve got to do things for them and they’re the ones driving it.

“So they asked us, ‘Can we do the march, can we do the hīkoi at kura tomorrow?’ I was like ‘Yep, let’s do it’."

Senior student Stellan Kawenga said she wanted to participate in the hīkoi “stand up for our rights and come together as tangata whenua”.

Meanwhile, younger students Ryder and Charli both said it was “mean” to participate in the march.

“It’s about representing our culture and being proud to be in this Māori family."

Crawford said she was extremely proud of her students and thought their actions made her excited for the future.

“What we can do here just shows the support that we give everybody over Aotearoa and the fight for us that we want to keep going and it’s all about the future generation of our tamariki mokopuna,” she said.

Omāhū School was devastated in Cyclone Gabrielle and is currently being rebuilt with the hopes of opening the new classrooms before the start of Term 1, 2025.

Currently, the school is running out of one small building with 54 students.