[ad_1]
The girls from Ūawa are huddled closely together on the side of the netball court, getting some last minute advice from their coach before the start of the next quarter.
It’s proving to be a tough first match for them at the Zespri AIMS Games in Tauranga – an uphill battle against a slick-looking side from Maidstone Intermediate School in Upper Hutt.
The team from Tolaga Bay Area School & Kahukuranui on the East Coast have come a long way to be here, however, and they happen to have a lot of recent experience when it comes to overcoming adversity.
And so, together, on three – one, two, three – the girls shout “Ūawa!” with pride and head back out onto the court.
The Zespri AIMS Games is a week-long sports tournament with 11,700 participants from 373 schools around the country and overseas, including Fiji, Samoa and the Cook Islands. There are 25 codes. This is the Olympics for intermediate-aged athletes in New Zealand and the Pacific.
GREENPEACE
Thee East Coast wāhine talk about Cyclone Gabrielle and the longer-term implications of climate change on their region.
Tolaga Bay Area School & Kahukuranui has 18 tauira (students) competing this year – nine in netball and nine in badminton.
It has been a long and difficult journey to get here.
The Ūawa/Tolaga Bay community and surrounding Tairāwhiti region has been hit hard again and again by severe weather events in recent years.
Cyclone Gabrielle caused widespread destruction in February. There were homes destroyed, bridges and roads washed out, thousands of people without power, phones or internet – a complete communications blackout – and communities were cut off and isolated.
The Ūawa River, which runs alongside the kura (school), was full of slash and debris.
“Whenever we hear rain in Tolaga Bay, our students have that fear of coming to school,” deputy principal (and AIMS Games netball umpire) Shanan Gray said.
He said the storms have created uncertainty and instability, “because we’ve faced so many devastations over that time”.
It is having a lasting impact.
Alan Gibson/AIMS Media
Tolaga Bay Area School & Kahukuranui teacher, netball coach, team van driver and cook Blanche Wanoa.
Tolaga Bay teacher (and AIMS Games netball coach) Blanche Wanoa said the school itself luckily avoided the worst of Cyclone Gabrielle.
“But we do have girls in our team who are actually displaced at the moment, living in other houses.”
The weather and what it could mean is never far from students’ minds at school.
“Just even the slightest bit of rain, the kids are like, ‘Do we have to go home now?’ ‘Oh no, is the bus going to run tomorrow?’ And then a lot of them won’t come to school if it rains,” Wanoa said.
She said the school and wider community have been very supportive in helping students and whānau impacted by the storms and they all banded together to get the team to Tauranga.
Kirsty Johnston/Stuff
Devastation following Cyclone Hale and Gabrielle in Tolaga Bay.
The drive took them almost seven hours on Sunday.
“It is awesome to be here. It’s awesome for the kids to get out of Tolaga Bay and just start having some fun and meeting heaps of new people.”
As well as being the AIMS Games netball coach, Wanoa is time-keeper on the sideline, she’s driving the team van, she’s the cook. Like the whole community in Ūawa, she’s doing it all for the tamariki.
“They belong to me, they belong to our iwi, so who else is going to do it but everyone back home, for them?” Wanoa said.
And all that effort is worth it.
“Every time we’ve come to AIMS, we’ve had a wonderful experience. Even though we lose games, it’s about seeing the happiness on their faces and meeting new people and new friends and just the whole environment is really good and it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about participation. That’s what we like about it.”
Alan Gibson/AIMS MEDIA
Tolaga Bay and Maidstone huddle together after the game, exchanging thanks and wishing each other all the best for the rest of the AIMS Games.
Tolaga Bay tauira Isis Sidney, 13, is at her first Zespri AIMS Games and said the opening netball match was both “nerve-racking and exciting”.
It was also the first ever AIMS Games match for Stevie Taingahue.
“It was really scary but fun at the same time,” the 11-year-old said.
“I made some new friends.”
At the end of the match, both teams – Tolaga Bay and Maidstone – came together in a big group huddle, exchanging thanks and words of support and wishing each other all the best for the rest of the week.
Gray knows firsthand what the AIMS Games experience means for those taking part.
As a student at the same kura he now works at, Gray took part in the 2005 AIMS Games, playing basketball.
“What I love about AIMS is the vibrancy, the different colours that all the schools are wearing, and for our kids to see the diversity that there is at the AIMS Games,” he said.
All year, his community has come together to tackle challenges and overcome adversity.
David White/Stuff
The Hikuwai Bridge north of Tolaga Bay collapsed after Cyclone Gabrielle lashed the area with record rainfall.
When a bridge was washed out and students couldn’t get to school, staff based in Tokomaru Bay started doing lessons at home so the learning could continue.
Kaiako (teachers) also made time during the school day for the AIMS Games students to practise their sport.
“We didn’t want to put more pressure on the whānau after school because all they want to do is just go home and be with their whānau,” Gray said.
The team leaving for the AIMS Games in Tauranga on Sunday was yet another example of what the community has been able to achieve.
“We feel elated. We give opportunities to our students for them to flourish, and this is an exciting moment that they can keep for the rest of their lives.”
[ad_2]