Pūkare Cards: Hawke's Bay students find nationwide success with te reo flash cards

From left to right are marketing manager Liv Fountain, CEO Tom Little, CFO Jasmine Paz and executive administration officer Elizabeth Raitaci of Pūkare Cards. Photo / Paul Taylor

A student-produced tool that utilises te reo Māori and emotive cards to help youth express themselves has successfully spread to schools and child care centres across the country.

Pūkare Cards is a teaching tool for communication, 25 cards each with a different emotion and scenario on the back weaving in te reo Māori throughout.

Taradale High School students Tom Little, Liv Fountain, Elizabeth Raitaci and Jasmine Paz came up with the business concept as part of the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme.

Just under three months since the first batch was produced, the enterprising students had already sold 240 boxes of Pūkare Cards at $20 each, with another 60 ordered and awaiting payment by the end of August.

The group said they had sold to guidance councillors, organisations, social workers and primary school teachers from Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland, Whangārei, Whakatane and Palmerston North.

A box of Pūkare Cards was donated to Sunny Days Early Childhood Education and Care Centre in Marewa last week.

Emily Hauraki-Cooper, team leader of the kiwi room for 3 to 5-year-olds at Sunny Days, said the cards looked amazing and would be useful for working with young children nearly ready for school.

"We had other similar cards, but they didn't have that te ao Māori lens with te reo, so that's what we're excited about, and they've got the scenarios on the back of them."

The Pūkare Cards team with an earlier prototype design of their product at the end of May. Photo / Warren Buckland

She said some 4-year-olds present when the cards were donated were engaging well with the cards.

"They were quite drawn to the cards, I think they quite liked them."

She said they were excited to start using the cards more with the children.

"That's what we're trying to support with young people, their social skills and communication skills."

She said they had the one set at the daycare, but a couple of teachers had also purchased their own sets.

Chief executive Tom Little said the Pūkare Cards team has now focussed on getting more brand exposure.

"At some stage, we will look at approaching shops and more of the retail market," he said.

CFO Paz said the group had set up a website to increase their reach with customers and help those looking for more information.

Executive administration officer Raitaci said the group believed in continuing success for the business and planned to continue running it in the coming year.

Marketing manager Fountain said they hoped to add more languages outside of te reo and English for the cards, including some Pacific languages, and take their business international.

Fountain said other ideas they were exploring after customer feedback included larger cards for class discussion and adding more cards to the range of emotions they depict.

Little said they were also looking into creating an online resource to pair with online teaching.