Kuia Honoured by EIT
Shortly after receiving the prestigious Tuakiri EIT medal of distinction at EIT Hawke’s Bay’s graduation ceremony last
week (Thursday/Friday, 28-29 March), Pauline Tangiora was encouraging her three-year-old mokopuna Te Tairawhiti Eady to further his own education at EIT.
Viewing the presentation on a screen set up outside Napier’s Municipal Theatre, the lively toddler joined in the
celebratory haka and waiata performed by EIT’s Te Uranga Waka students. And Te Tairawhiti has promised his nanny, a
Mahia resident, that he will be going on to tertiary study at the institute she has served for so many years.
The capacity audience attending graduation saw the medal blessed by EIT kaumatua Matiu Eru and presented to Pauline by
EIT Council chairman David Pearson.
The award was established two years ago to honour those who have made an outstanding contribution to EIT and the wider
community and to mark the coming together of EIT Hawke’s Bay and Tairawhiti Polytechnic to establish EIT as the leading
educator for the East Coast and Hawke’s Bay.
EIT chief executive Chris Collins pointed out that the Maori word tuakiri refers to a sense of identity, the essence of
a person, something that was very deep within.
“The essence of the medal is captured in a proverb/whakatauki, Mate atu he tete kura, ara mai ra he tete kura,” he said. “As one chief passes, another lives on to lead.”
Of Rongomaiwahine descent and affiliated to Ngai Tamunuhiri, Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, Ngati Porou, Ngati Kahungunu,
Whakatohea and Te Uri o Waikaremoana, Pauline has been associated with EIT since its earliest years.
Her responsibilities have included tutoring in the Maori areas of nursing and health, serving on its council for three
years and chairing its Maori consultative committee. For the past 30 years, she has also been EIT’s kuia.
At the time of EIT’s first incarnation as the Hawke’s Bay Community College, the then volunteer social worker was
involved with her late husband John Tangiora, Heitia Hiha, Hiria Tumoana and other volunteers in supporting the
community in the Napier suburb of Maraenui.
“Before he passed, John asked me not to forget that we hadn’t finished our work in Maraenui. The young people there,
they needed an education, and there weren’t the opportunities for them.”
Working with Tuahine Joe Northover, Canon Wi Huata, the dean of the Maori studies faculty Dr Joseph Te Rito and others
who have since passed, the couple supported the institute’s first principal, Dr John Harré, in encouraging Maori to
enrol on educational programmes.
Deeply involved in progressing environmental, health and spiritual causes in the Maori and Pakeha worlds and in advising
at many community and international events, Pauline has received many awards.
These include membership of the Maori Women’s Welfare League in 1986, the Queen’s Service Medal for community service in
1988, the New Zealand Commemoration Medal in 1990 and the Queen’s Service Order in 2001.
In accepting the Tuakiri medal, Pauline said the efforts of many people were continuing to bear fruit in the
intergenerational success stories and EIT’s growing numbers of graduates.
In urging the young Te Tairawhiti to look to his own education, she surmised: “That’s the age you catch them. If you
encourage children in the early years they will later seek further knowledge in whatever field of endeavour they choose
for themselves. ”
ENDS