Two secondary students have proven they've got the gift of the gab, after they won three trophies at the national Maori speech awards in Dunedin.
Back at school this week, Evana Schinkel, from St Joseph's Maori Girls' College, and Soraya Kamau, of Napier Girls' High School had a trophy or twoto show off to their classmates.
Year 13 student Soraya outclassed her rivals to win best impromptu and best overall senior speech in English at the Nga Manu Korero competition last month. Soraya spoke on the topic "being the leaders of tomorrow begins today" for over five minutes and without cue cards, in front of an audience of budding speechmakers, their tutors and kaumatua.
But it was the impromptu section where she felt most comfortable, talking about texting in today's generation for nearly three minutes.
Growing up with kapa haka and the performing arts, Soraya was not fazed being in the spotlight. "I don't really get nervous. I'm a drama queen and I like being in front of people," she said.
It was the second time Soraya competed in the national competition, but the first time she had placed. She credited her success to the huge amount of support, particularly from her teachers Barbara Foote and Jenny Cracknell and sponsors Wairoa Taiwhenua.
Evana shone in the junior English division and delivered her winning speech on what it meant to be a "digital native".
Evana, rather fittingly, won the Sir Turi Carroll trophy, named after the revered Ngati Kahungunu leader.
The Year 10 student felt "humbled" by the experience.
"I didn't think I was going to win. I was really honoured to be the first person to win for my school," she said.
Her English teacher and speech coach Marek Pipi had been quietly confident after watching her performance.
"She showed a lot of confidence. The audience were all smiling and nodding and she had everybody eating out of the palm of her hand," he said.
"She's one of our up-and-coming speech makers. She's only Year 10 so we'll definitely keep her on our cards."
