Māori Maps at the National Library

Māori Maps is one of the innovative organisations featured in an exhibition that opened yesterday at the National Library of NZ /Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. If you're in Wellington check out the Leading Edge exhibition -http://natlib.govt.nz/visiting/wellington/leadingedge

Māori Maps shortlisted for World Summit Awards

Te Potiki National Trust has welcomed its nomination as a finalist in the World Summit Awards for the Māori Maps website, www.maorimaps.com.

Communications and Information Technology Minister Amy Adams yesterday congratulated Te Potiki National Trust and the seven other New Zealand organisations that have made the finals in the global World Summit Awards for creativity and innovation in ICT.

“It is great to see New Zealand projects of this calibre being recognised on the world stage. It is particularly important that we celebrate and encourage the high level of innovation and creativity that we have in this country,” Ms Adams said.

Te Potiki National Trust Chairperson Paora Tapsell said this recognition was reward for the hard work of its largely voluntary team.

Over the past five years, Māori Maps has created a digital database of marae locations, photographs and information to assist Māori descendants, as well as visitors, in connecting with the more than 750 ancestral marae in New Zealand.

“This unexpected honour will help to promote our message about how unique our marae are in the world, and how important they are for the identity and well-being of present and future generations of Māori.”

He thanked the Trust’s volunteers and supporters for their faith in the project.

Key backing for Māori Maps has come from The Tindall Foundation, the University of Otago, the University of Auckland, the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, and several community trusts.

The www.maorimaps.com website, based on Google Maps, lets users navigate by a range of filters to locate marae – and now lists about 98% of the ancestral marae around the country.

The site is designed and hosted by Auckland-based Zest Media, and managed by the Trust’s Online Producer, Mike Hennessy.

Te Potiki National Trust is now adding archival photos and taonga links to the site, and working to complete translation of all content into Te Reo Māori. 

For further information, contact:

 Peter Dowling, Kaihautu; 09 814 8993, pita@maorimaps.com

Note: Oratia Media, publisher of Libro International books, is a supporter of Te Potiki National Trust and Peter acts as its kaihautu/chief executive. 

Māori Maps

MEDIA RELEASE

Auckland/Tāmaki-makaurau

1 August / 1 Heri-turi-kōkā 2011                                                                        7.00 a.m.

For immediate release

New website www.maorimaps.com connects people and marae

Te Potiki National Trust this morning officially launched the Māori Maps website, www.maorimaps.com 

The site dynamically delivers maps, photographs and information about the tribal marae of Te Tai Tokerau/Northland and Tāmaki/Auckland.

It provides a portal to over 170 marae through the North.

www.maorimaps.com is the first stage of a long-term project to revitalise links between marae, descendants and visitors.

Navigating via an interactive map or quick searches, users can easily locate a marae, get directions, see photos from the gateway and access key information.

The site launch represents five years’ work to establish the venture, attract support and research around the North.

Paul Tapsell and Rereata Makiha founded Te Potiki National Trust in 2006 with the aim of reconnecting young urban Māori – the ‘potiki’ generation – to their home communities and elders.

Marae are the beneficiaries of work by the Māori Maps team.

Tapsell, now professor of Māori Studies at the University of Otago, led the research across the North, accompanied by photographer Krzysztof Pfeiffer, kaumātua Renata Tane, and Rereata Makiha.

“Our marae are places where issues have been resolved for generations. They are central to our identity, which is grounded in ancestral landscapes.

“In recent times our potiki – the young generation – have been growing up away from marae, and as our elders die, our rich traditions, dialects and practices are dying with them.

“The Māori Maps team hopes to be the beginning of a solution, providing a pathway to marae that will benefit all New Zealand.

“It seeks to create a sustainable response to a real crisis: reconnection of new generations of Māori to their tribal identity, and sustaining our marae.”

The site fills a need for a portal that allows easy connection to marae at no cost to iwi, hapū or whānau, and will allow them access to store images and records online.

“We are committed to ongoing contact with runanga (tribal boards) and marae to keep the content and website features up to date,” Tapsell said.

Māori Maps has been funded by the Tindall Foundation, FoRST and the ASB Community Trust, with support from the universities of Auckland (James Henare Māori Research Centre, and Business School via Icehouse/SPARK and Otago (Te Tumu School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies), and Chapman Tripp. 

The Māori Maps team is planning its next field research in Bay of Plenty, Otago, Southland and Waikato.

Further features are under development for the site, not least a Te Reo Māori version, iPad and iPhone compatibility, and a layer of mapping of all marae in each runanga and iwi grouping.

– ENDS –  

For an interview, contact:

 Paul Tapsell, Director, 021 279 8677, paora@maorimaps.com

For Te Reo interviews, contact:

Rereata Makiha, 021 190 1379, ral.makiha@paradise.net.nz 

For further information, contact:

Peter Dowling, Kaihautu, 027 614 8993, pita@maorimaps.com