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Celebrating diversity
The whānau of BestStart Oamaru Kindy have recently celebrated both Tongan Language Week and Māori Language Week by planning and taking part in a variety of experiences at the centre.
During Tongan Language Week enjoyed lots of Tongan art and crafts, music and practicing language through games. We are fortunate to have great Tongan families in our centre who were happy to teach us a new Tongan song to sing with our children. Our Tongan children felt very empowered by the celebrations not only at our centre but within our community and were proud to wear their Tongan clothing to the centre.
During Māori Language Week we took part in arts and crafts, sang waiata, danced with poi and practiced our mihi. We have a great range of bicultural resources and during the week we enjoyed listening to our te reo Māori songbooks and practicing our rakau sticks. We had a visit from a local school’s kapa haka group whose waiata was thoroughly enjoyed by the tamariki.
Both the Tongan Language Week and Māori Language Week remind and reinvigorate us to recognise and celebrate the diversity of our centre community.