Teen speech warrior

Bilingual Makoura College pupil Whatahoro Fox has won a prestigious finalist berth at the 46th annual Nga Manu Korero national secondary school speech contest in Tauranga next week.

Whatahoro, 16, of Ngati Kahungunu, will square off in the senior Pei Te Hurinui Jones section of the competition for pupils speaking in Maori after he won through the regional heats held at Naenae College earlier this year.

Nga Manu Korero began in 1965, and was first known as the Korimako Contest. The annual event now incorporates the Korimako and Sir Turi Carroll competitions for Maori pupils speaking in English and the Pei Te Hurinui Jones and Te Rawhiti Ihaka competitions for all pupils speaking in Maori.

The national finals this year will be hosted by the National Organising Komiti at the Bay Park Events Centre in Mount Maunganui and will run from September 27 to 29.

The contests seek to encourage the development of skills and confidence of Maori pupils in spoken English and Maori.

Whatahoro said his speech draws on a subject that translates as "unity from individuality" and launches from the metaphor of a lone totara tree that would best tower within a forest.

Whatahoro said this is his first year in a mainstream school after first capturing his education at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Wairarapa in Masterton and at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Nga Mokopuna in Wellington.

He said his speech at the regional heats was given before a crowd of up to 200 people and the national contest is to be recorded for television before an audience of more than a thousand people.

Whatahoro said he was aiming to gain a PhD in Maori studies toward work in Maori community development and the scholarship prizes offered through the speech contest would help pave a way into university study.

"Being involved with taha Maori allows me to be myself and the main thing in the speech contest for me is to put Wairarapa on the map in the Maori world."

Makoura College principal Tom Hullena said in the latest school newsletter that the Nga Manu Korero competition was "open only to the best of the very best of New Zealand's student speech makers".

"To gain entry into this prestigious event is a major achievement in its own right. We congratulate Whatahoro and his whanau on this achievement and wish him all the very best," Mr Hullena said.

"I am certain, knowing what I do of this young man, that he will proudly and capably carry the mana of the Wairarapa with him."