NEWSROOM: 18 November - 24 November 2007

Return to Roots Mission deemed a success
24 November 2007 - Source: Maori Television Press Release
 
A Maori youth magazine and a documentary about a Kiwi surfing star are the media finalists in the 2007 NATIONAL MAORI SPORTS AWARDS screening on Maori Television on Saturday November 24 from 9.30 PM to 11.30 PM.

The national awards organiser ‘Te Tohu Taakaro o Aotearoa Charitable Trust’ will host the prestigious black-tie awards ceremony at the Energy Events Centre in Rotorua for the first time in its 17-year history. A range of awards will be presented including administrator, coach, umpire/referee, team, disabled sportsperson, and junior and senior sportsman and sportswoman as well as several world champions.

The Maori Sports Media Award of the Year, Whakapaaoho Reo o Hinepukohurangi, is aimed at encouraging more positive and expert reporting on Maori sports and improving the depth and quality of Maori sports reporting.

The finalists are:

TAMATI ELLISON (TAIOHI: ISSUE 25)
A magazine for youth published by Te Mana, a programme run by the Ministry of Education to help rangatahi get the most out of school. The free magazine was relaunched in a new format in March this year and its profiles of Maori sporting achievers” such as professional rugby player Tamati Ellison “provide encouragement, motivation and inspiration”. The editor is Sandi Hinerangi Barr (Ngai Tahu, Ngati Porou).

AIRINI MASON
An hour-long documentary produced by Te Kauhoe Wano (Ngati Awa) from Toa TV, based in Piha near Auckland, for Maori Television. The film focuses on Kiwi surf star Mason (Ngati Awa, Rongomaiwahine) and the influence whanau has had on her international success. The documentary will re-screen on Maori Television on Wednesday November 14 at 8.30 PM.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR 2007 NATIONAL MAORI SPORTS AWARDS:
Year: 2007
Censor: Not rated
Duration: 120-minute special broadcast
Language: Maori and English languages
 

Archaeology unearths gout in early Pacific people
23 November 2007 - Source: Otago University Press Release
 
High rates of gout among Māori and Pacific Island men may have a genetic basis going back thousands of years to the time when Polynesia and Melanesia were being colonised from South East Asia.

University of Otago Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology biological anthropologist Dr Hallie Buckley has been working with colleagues from the Australian National University and CNRS in Paris to analyse skeletons from a 3000 year-old cemetery in Vanuatu.

Her paper on possible gouty arthritis amongst the Lapita people – so-called because of their distinctive decorated pottery known as the Lapita style – has been published in the October edition of Current Anthropology.

"We examined the bones of 20 skeletons from the first two field seasons using radiography and other techniques and found erosive lesions or damage to the joints of seven of them. The pattern of these lesions suggests they were most likely the result of gouty arthritis," says Dr Buckley.

Gout is caused by a build-up in the affected joints of urate crystals, the result of hyperuricaemia or high levels of urate acid in the blood.

"This surprising finding suggests a very early antiquity of gout in the Pacific Islands and may help to explain the unusually high incidence of hyperuricaemia and gout in many modern Pacific Island populations, including New Zealand Māori," she says.

Other researchers have already suggested that the higher prevalence of gout in Polynesian populations may be due to a genetic predisposition. A genetic marker for gout susceptibility in Taiwanese Aborigines has been identified, suggesting that a founder effect could be responsible for this.

Dr Buckley also says the Lapita people's diet tended to consist of local plants and seafood. That purine rich seafood can set-off attacks of gout in people who are already susceptible to the condition.

"The predominance of this sort of diet may have favoured the continued selection of high frequencies of hyperuricaemia and gout in these ancient explorers."

Dr Buckley has also been working with a research team led by Durham University in the United Kingdom for a paper that has just been published in the journal American Antiquity.

Analysis of chemical isotopes in the teeth of a group of skeletons buried in unusual positions at the same site suggested that they were a group of immigrants who had joined the group from a distant location, potentially as far away as Southeast Asia.
It underscores the status of early Pacific Islanders as being amongst the best mariners on earth at that time.

The cemetery where the skeletons were found was discovered by a research team led by Professor Matthew Spriggs and Dr Stuart Bedford from The Australian National University and the Vanuatu National Museum in 2003 at Teouma, on Efate Island in Vanuatu.

They have uncovered almost 50 burials, more than doubling the number of skeletal remains of the first Pacific Islanders from anywhere around the Pacific.
Dr Buckley is leading a project examining a variety of aspects of the health of the Teouma people.

The excavation was a joint initiative of the Vanuatu National Museum and The Australian National University with funding from the Pacific Biological Foundation and the Royal Society of New Zealand. The laboratory analysis was funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund and the University of Otago.
 

Films bring HIV realities home for World Aids Day
22 November 2007 - Source: Positive Women Press Release
 
Aucklanders have a chance next Wednesday night to quiz the New Zealand film-makers responsible for two documentaries about living with HIV, one of which has just collected a new Peace Foundation award.

Irene, made by Auckland journalist Ingrid Leary, looks at the discrimination faced by a Vanuatu nurse Irene Malachai. A Grandmother’s Tribe, by producers Quijing Wong and Dean Easterbrook, examines the HIV epidemic through the eyes of two Kenyan grandmothers.

All three film-makers will be present to answer audience questions at an Academy Cinema screening of their movies on Wednesday 28 November in the lead-up to World AIDS Day. Proceeds from tickets sold by the supporting charities – Positive Women, Oxfam, World Vision, YWCA and ChildFund - will go towards women and families in New Zealand living with HIV and to the Pacific Island AIDS Foundation.

Positive Women national co-ordinator Jane Bruning says this is the second consecutive year that international and national organizations have worked together to raise awareness for World AIDS Day on 1 December.

“Ordinary people get HIV and today, the rate of heterosexual infection in New Zealand is outpacing that of gay men,” she says. “We are becoming more complacent at a time when the reach of this virus has never been greater.”

Film-maker Ingrid Leary sees HIV as without doubt the biggest issue facing the Pacific over the next 10 years, yet it remains virtually invisible.

Earlier this month the Peace Foundation gave the independent journalist its first Peace and Development in the Pacific Award for her documentary work on Pacific Island women living with HIV and AIDS.

“The epidemic of silence and ignorance around the virus threatens human rights and the social and economic fabric of Pacific communities,” Ingrid Leary says. "As neighbour, and with one of the largest Pacific communities in the world, New Zealand has every reason to be concerned and proactive about this issue. Yet we continue to hide our head in the sand, hoping it will go away, or not even believing it is really there.”

Ingrid Leary said New Zealand and the wider Pacific media were failing miserably in their duty to inform people about the virus; and compassionate, effective ways of dealing with it. “Creating a community of inclusion and support for those affected and infected by HIV is the very first step in preventing its spread."

Background information: Last year 177 people were newly diagnosed with HIV in New Zealand which is the second-highest number since antibody testing started in the mid 1980s. Seventy were men infected through sex with men and 85 were infected through heterosexual contact.

For more information, please contact Positive Women national co-ordinator Jane Bruning, by phone: (09) 309-1858 or (027) 411-5736, or by email: positivewomen@xtra.co.nz
 

Winning art influenced by a state house journey
21 November 2007 - Source: Martin Hughes Architecture Interiors Press Release
 
Poignant but full of hope, the work of Terry Koloamatangi Klavenes represents an investigation into the complexities and anxieties of so many who are what he describes as “hybrids” (Terry is Tongan/Norwegian) from within the low socio-economic neighbourhoods of South Auckland.

The hope within the work is personified by Terry’s own children. Terry’s family members are featured in the photographs of the mixed media piece, with one of the award judges describing the youngest child as a “young Mona Lisa”.

Terry Klavenes is the recipient of the 2007 Martin Hughes Contemporary Pacific Art Award, which was announced in Auckland on Thursday night (15 November) at a ceremony which also celebrated the 10th year of the Award.

An exhibition of all finalists will be showing for 3 weeks (until December 6) at the Martin Hughes Gallery in the Axis Building 91 Lower St Georges Bay Road Parnell.

The awarded work is a comment on the artist’s journey, about growing up in state houses. He explains very vividly: “My mum used to hang pictures over the holes in the walls and decorate them with leis, sometimes the pictures were of the people we knew, family, sometimes they were of strangers.”

The work, which is produced by the artist out of a concrete garaged in Manurewa, is composed of custom hand-printed wallpaper incorporating all the symbols of South Auckland – the dollar sign, the cross, the sandshoes over the power lines, the prison tattoo of the swallow which symbolises freedom.

Each work incorporates a photograph of those who are part of the artist’s life, framed in a custom fluorescent acrylic frame. Each frame includes symbols of importance to each person, similar to an individual coat of arms; shoes and hibiscus for a daughter, rapper paraphernalia for a son, birds and flowers for the youngest.

The works on show are part of a bigger group of work.

The judges were unanimous in their decision. They found the work a fascinating juxtaposition of tradition meeting the contemporary – with immediate visual impact and delivering on a number of emotional levels.

Commenting on the Awards and the winner John Hughes of Martin Hughes said that Terry Koloamatangi Klavenes work embodied the philosophy of the Award “to interpret the Pacific influence with a modern and fresh point of view.”

Martin Hughes Architecture Interiors is a major New Zealand design company. For the past 35 years Martin Hughes has been promoting original New Zealand and Pacific art and incorporating it into their work. They have led the way, through their design, in celebrating Pacific influences through textures, art and colour.

One of the key influencers in interior design in New Zealand, Martin Hughes takes the passion for art into their work are pioneers in introducing contemporary New Zealand art into commercial and domestic spaces as part of the design.

Established ten years ago, the Award’s previous winners have been the artists Andy Leleisi’uao, Nikki Hastings McFall, Sheyne Tuffery, photographer Ross T Smith, carver Tui Hobson painter Zarahn Southon, and artist Lorene Taurerewa.

The categories are printmaking, painting, sculpture, weaving, tapa/textiles, jewellery, photography, carving, and multi media installation.

Commenting on the Award and its importance to him, one of the original winners Andy Leleisi’ua said “when I was awarded The Martin Hughes Contemporary Pacific Art Award my work then was heavily ‘social and political’. I was surprised to receive this Award but it illustrated that we have people in different parts of our society who believe Pacific Island art and artists are able to make a difference.”

The Award is a travel grant of $5000, supporting artists to develop, investigate and research a project. Terry Koloamatangi Klavenes intends to return to Tonga.

Finalists for the Award were: Dylan Lind, multi-media; Richard Boyd-Dunlop, painting; Aroha Lewin, painting; Vinesh Kumaran, photography; Kay George, mixed media; John Ioane , sculpture; Kulimoe’anga Stone Maka, painting; Genevieve Pini, mixed media; Isabella Rasch, multi-media.

An Encouragement Award was also given to Christchurch painter Kulimoe’anga Stone Maka. This was given by advertising agency TBWA/Whybin in conjunction with the Martin Hughes Award.

Judges for the Award are Fatu Fau’u, Deborah White, David Walden, John Hughes, and Paul Macintosh.
 

Return to Roots Mission deemed a success
20 November 2007 - Source: PITIC NZ Press Release
 
The ten Pacific Island entrepreneurs from the inaugural Air NZ Return to Roots Trade Mission to Samoa and Tonga 5-10 November led by the Pacific Islands Trade & Investment Commission (PITIC NZ) have returned home buzzing with the results of their mission.

Although the dollar values of the deals are yet to be fully determined, the long term results for the entrepreneurs are definitely positive with deals for small producers and the larger Pacific producers conservatively estimated at more than NZD $1 million dollars and solid long term relationships developed.

Opportunities have arisen to sell and lease property in Tonga and Samoa; potential training opportunities undertaken jointly between NZ and Pacific partners have materialized and opportunity to export Tongan processed tomatoes and tapa for packaging was established. In the pipeline - a possible joint venture to start a scooter hire business in both Tonga and Samoa.

The mission was so successful that all participants rated the initiative highly for opening doors into the Samoa and Tongan market. A few of the delegates have undertaken to sign Memoranda of Understanding with a range of companies and organizations including Women in Business in Samoa; a manufacturer of coconut oil and a company in the fishing industry in Tonga.

PITIC NZ Trade Commissioner Chris Cocker says the above deals confirm that there are great opportunities in the Pacific Islands that NZ based Pacific Island Entrepreneurs could tap into, develop long term and prove as win-win situations for the New Zealand Pacific business people and their Pacific based joint ventures.

“There’s huge potential for the Pacific to create long term business partnerships with those Pacific entrepreneurs in New Zealand. This mission has succeeded in achieving our objective of opening doors and building links between the Pacific and New Zealand Pacific entrepreneurs. “

Despite some ongoing challenges faced by the Pacific islands – Samoa has successfully proven that these challenges can be overcome and there is possibility for good investment and growth.

Tonga is in the process of rebuilding its economy and despite being an economy in transition there are good signs for positive future developments he said.

“There’s international interest in the untapped potential of the Pacific and we want to ensure that our Pacific entrepreneurs in NZ get first hand opportunity to view the business opportunities and what’s available in Samoa and Tonga” added Cocker.
 

Nurturing Pacific families in safe and caring communities
19 November 2007 - Source: eventpolynesia.com
 
A week long community initiative led by Strong Pasifika Families, running from 24 November to 01 December, aims to reduce the incidences of family and community violence in the Porirua area. Their vision is nurturing strong vibrant Pacific families in safe and caring communities.

The intention of the initiative is to generate community action by raising awareness and educating the Porirua Pacific communities about minimising incidences of family and community violence.

It is the hope of Strong Pasifika Families to achieve their scheduled activities by using a strength-based approach, highlighting the vibrancy and cultural strength of Porirua Pacific communities. The Strong Pasifika Families committee is well represented by eight Pacific ethnicities.

One of the many events taking place during the week is the Strong Pacific Families parade, led by ACC, which starts at Waitangirua mall at 8AM and heads towards the mini festival at Te Rauparaha Park, which runs from 10AM to noon. Featuring in the parade is Mr Funnyman, Tofiga Fepulea'i and the Mission choir. Other events included in the week are the 'No Sweat Parenting' programme with Pio Terei and the Pacific narratives.

The event is well supported by various organisations including government and private agencies.
 

Pacific Island forum convenes at Te Papa
18 November 2007 - Source: eventpolynesia.com
 
Next week's Pacific Island forum will be a chance for the Pacific community to get together and talk through any issues and concerns about the current laws and services important to Pacific families of today.

Mayor Kerry Prendergast and Wellington City Council Chief Executive Garry Poole will lead the forum based on Pacific families; the pulse of the Pacific people

The Forum will be a community focused event for Pacific Island communities to discuss and identify any issues or concerns they want to raise with the Council, and how they want to work with the Council in the future.

It will also be an opportunity for the Council to listen to the community and provide brief updates on current projects.

The Niuean community is invited to conduct hymns and prayers before Mayor Kerry Prendergast opens the forum, welcomes guests and introduces the theme and speaker. Wellington City Council CEO, Garry Poole will set the scene and update the community on actions taken since the last forum. An opportunity is also given to Byron Roff, Director of the Housing Project and Chairperson of the Pacific Advisory Board, Mrs Ida Faiumu Isa’ako to give their updates. The guest speaker of the evening is Afioga Ali'imuamua Sandra Alofivae, Commissioner for the Families Commission.

It is the hope of Wellington City Council CEO, Garry Poole that this Pacific Island forum will strengthen their working relationship with the community and to ensure the Council responds to its needs.

The forum is to be held Monday, 19 November from 5.30–8.30pm at the Rangimarie Room, Te Papa Museum.
 

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