Tangata Turi - Tangata Tiriti: Belong in Aotearoa

Tangata Tiriti – Treaty People external designed and delivered a series of workshops about Te Tiriti o Waitangi with Deaf groups around the country. This report was prepared by Marisa Maclachlan.

What's on this page

What we did

There were seven workshops between May 2022 and February 2023:

Wellington
Hawkes Bay
Auckland
Hamilton
Christchurch
Manawatū
Otago

The workshops answered questions like:

• Why do we have a treaty?

• What does it say?

• What happened in our history of colonisation?

• How is Te Tiriti important for Deaf community?

Activities

We used visual activities to explore these questions. For example:

Sharing where our ancestors are from:
Looking at a timeline of Aotearoa.
Learning about colonisation in Aotearoa and recent events

Some of the workshops were held at Deaf Clubs and some were held on Marae.

Aratiatia Community Marae external in Hamilton
Araiteuru Marae external in Dunedin.
Ruaumoko Marae in Kelston, Auckland

Māori Deaf also shared their knowledge at the workshops, including Haami (Sam) Te Maari. He explained about the 1835 Declaration of Independence at the workshop in Christchurch. You can see a video of his presentation on YouTube. external

Feedback on the course

Participants loved learning on a Marae.

It was a really inspiring day that will stay with me. The Marae as an educational space - the whakairo in 3D. The artistic features connect to my wairua (spirit) and ngakau (heart). It's the best marae for Deaf."
- Participant feedback 9/07/22

Participants really liked the visual materials:

What I liked about this workshop is that it was really visual. There were a lot of pictures and a lot of visual information. You were able to see the people who were involved. In the past I’ve done a workshop on the Treaty, but it’s been a lot more talking and less visual. I feel the visual representation in this has been great for Deaf and also seeing the different hapu in different regions and the different iwi has been brilliant."
- Participant feedback 21/5/22

They enjoyed having this discussion in small groups:

Especially talking about what we’re going to do, what our next steps are after this we go home. Now we are more empowered as Deaf people and the knowledge we now have about Te Tiriti, what we’re going to do with that."
- Participant feedback 12/05/22

At every workshop people said they were keen to learn more and continue learning together in the future.