Our Stories

Korero Ki Makere

Kia ora, nau mai haere mai, welcome to you reading this webpage. I am just over three months into my enrolment for a PhD in Māori education, and that's long enough for me to know that I don't know very much. So far I've learnt that a PhD is like an apprenticeship to do research, and at the MAI ki Poneke monthly hui, I heard from recent Māori PhD graduates that "you can get a PhD" and that "you can finish your PhD, but first you have to get started."

I was only the second mokopuna in our big extended whanau to achieve School Certificate, the first to pick up an undergraduate degree, and by the time I completed a Masters degree I was well aware that I was very much on my own. When my brother asked me recently ' are you still doing that same job?' I wasn't sure what to say, "No I'm unemployed like you" um "No, I'm on a benefit too" or "I'm doing a PhD." You can guess what I said to him, but his answer to me was 'What's a PhD?' So I said "I was told that PhD stands for Piled high and Deep (MAI Hui July 2003) or it could be that it means you are highly qualified to Put a hangi Down (MAI hui April 2004)."

My whānau are proud of me and help keep me real, my friends help keep me sane, my mentors in He Parekereke help me feel safe, my thesis supervisors keep me on track, and the MAI ki Poneke rōpū and hui are the warmth and light in every month for me. At the hui it all comes together for me, I feel at home with some like minded people, I feel supported by the way we do things in the hui (I love learning our mōteatea), I learn heaps from awesome peers and visiting academics, and I'm learning about research and academic skills, like writing and ethics. There's a vision to have 500 Māori PhD's graduate in the next 5 years, I plan to be one in that number, (that's a lot of hangi).

Arohanui,
Makere