Manu Korero: Rotorua speakers reach national final

Four of Rotorua's top Maori speakers have qualified for the Nga Manu Korero national speech competition.

About 30 students competed in the Nga Manu Korero Te Arawa regional secondary schools speech competition at Waiariki Institute of Technology's Tangatarua Marae yesterday.

The well-known competition has been offered to Maori secondary school students across New Zealand for nearly 50 years and is the biggest Maori speech competition.

The annual competition offers six categories - junior English, junior Maori, senior English and senior Maori prepared speeches and senior Maori and senior English impromptu speeches.

The overall winners of the two senior categories were Te Kura o Te Koutu's Te Mauri Kingi, for senior Maori and Rotorua Boys' High School's Jack Potaka, for senior English.

Te Mauri also won the senior Maori impromptu section while Western Heights High School's Rangimonoa Rangihau had the winning prepared speech in the senior Maori section.

Jack also won the impromptu speech category of the senior English section while Awateri Douglas from Te Kura o Te Koutu won the senior English section prepared speech section.

The junior category winners featured Te Kaiamo Okeroa Rogers-Smith, for junior Maori section and Atelea Mapapalagi for junior English.

The winners will represent the Te Arawa region at the National final at Hamilton's Mystery Creek in September.