North Canterbury News: October 17, 2019
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St Patrick’s Kaiapoi Rarotonga Cultural Trip<br />
Nine Kaiapoi children are about<br />
to embark on atrip of alifetime to<br />
Rarotonga.<br />
St Patrick’s Kaiapoi Catholic Primary<br />
School is taking nine Year 7and 8pupils<br />
and two adults to the Cook Islands in<br />
term four to learn about the local culture<br />
and do some community service.<br />
“This is our second trip and what we’ve<br />
identified is the opportunity to do an<br />
overseas trip like no other,” says teacher<br />
Pax O’Dowd, who will accompany the<br />
pupils to Rarotonga.<br />
“It’s like school camp, where the<br />
students will have some fun, but it’s<br />
Raro style and it’s an opportunity to<br />
give back to the local community and<br />
to learn what we share in common<br />
as Pacific communities as well as our<br />
differences.”<br />
Pax will be joined on the trip by parent<br />
and Board of Trustees member Angela<br />
Lamont.<br />
Although the Cook Islands is officially<br />
apart of New Zealand and uses New<br />
Zealand dollars, life is very different on<br />
the islands and local schools do not<br />
have the same resources.<br />
As well as fundraising for the trip, Pax<br />
says the school has been fundraising<br />
to support Nukutere College, aYear<br />
7to11school in Rarotonga, which St<br />
Patrick’s has built arelationship with.<br />
“Our first trip last year was an<br />
opportunity to see the lay of the land.<br />
We quickly realised the school doesn’t<br />
have alot, and in the last few years<br />
they had afire burn down some of their<br />
classrooms. To date, nothing has been<br />
rebuilt due to alack of funding.”<br />
The St Patrick’s contingent plans to<br />
take some resources for the school and<br />
is seeking support from the local <strong>North</strong><br />
<strong>Canterbury</strong> community.<br />
Anumber of local sports organisations<br />
have agreed to donate sports<br />
equipment and local businesses have<br />
given some stationery.<br />
Pax says the group is also liaising with<br />
community groups in Rarotonga to do<br />
some volunteering, planting and clean<br />
up work.<br />
The group will be staying at the<br />
Rakahanga hostel, which is named after<br />
one of the islands, and is like amarae,<br />
Pax says.<br />
“It’s very basic, but community<br />
focused and everybody pitches in with<br />
cooking and cleaning.<br />
“They are wonderful hosts and are<br />
quite proud of their country and are<br />
really happy, humble people.”<br />
The pupils said they were looking<br />
forward to visiting Rarotonga and<br />
meeting their new penpals at Nukutere<br />
College, who they have been<br />
corresponding with in the lead up to the<br />
trip.<br />
Pupil Mason Robson says his penpal<br />
‘likes taro’, apopular vegetable in the<br />
Pacific Islands.<br />
His classmate Caleb Spence says he<br />
has been to Rarotonga before and is<br />
looking forward to returning.<br />
“I’m excited to see the beach. It’s pretty<br />
hot at 30 degrees most of the time and it<br />
rains alot.”<br />
Their classmates are looking forward to<br />
learning about Cook Islands culture and<br />
meeting their penpals.<br />
They have been busy fundraising and<br />
collecting stationery supplies and books<br />
to take to Nukutere College and packing<br />
their bags.<br />
The Cook Islands is acollection of<br />
15 tropical islands totalling 240 square<br />
kilometres and has apopulation similar<br />
to Rangiora.<br />
Far more Cook Island nationals live<br />
in New Zealand, with the 2013 census<br />
identifying more than 60,000 as<br />
resident in this country, about the same<br />
population as the Waimakariri district.<br />
The culture and language are similar<br />
to Maori and the indigenous people are<br />
known as Cook Island Maori.<br />
Nukutere is also believed to be the<br />
name of one of the waka on which Maori<br />
tipuna (ancestors) travelled to Aotearoa<br />
New Zealand.<br />
Pax O’Dowd<br />
-Head Teacher<br />
Angela Lamont<br />
-Student support<br />
admin1@morgan-pollard.co.nz<br />
03 349 8228<br />
www.morgan-pollard.co.nz<br />
Billie Bradley<br />
Caleb Spence<br />
admin@employment-law.co.nz<br />
03 365 2150<br />
www.employment-law.co.nz<br />
Carla Mangubat<br />
A.A. Drainage<br />
021 533 201<br />
Dylan Hamblyn<br />
Royce Ellis<br />
Plastering Ltd<br />
Interior plasterers<br />
theroc@xtra.co.nz<br />
027 407 8928<br />
Emily Evans<br />
HR@irecruitexpress.co.nz<br />
021 259 7293<br />
www.sparklin.co.nz<br />
Jade Lamont<br />
bhworks@xtra.co.nz<br />
027 432 7698<br />
Mason Robson<br />
brooktrucks@xtra.co.nz<br />
03 313 6361<br />
www.brooktrucks.co.nz<br />
Max Oberndorfer<br />
pegasusfencing@outlook.co.nz<br />
021 108 9899<br />
Ruby Thoms<br />
andy@ajrobsonbuilders.co.nz<br />
021 335 051<br />
mail@modesign.co.nz<br />
03 327 2626<br />
www.modesign.co.nz<br />
admin@totaltrans.co.nz<br />
03 349 8237<br />
www.totaltrans.co.nz<br />
2207839
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