Still celebrating...

My work colleagues sharing a celebratory morning tea

A neat celebratory gift from my
work colleagues

It's been a blessing to share my writing journey with my work colleagues. I've been working at Te Wananga o Aotearoa for 5 years now, most recently as a degree learning advisor and I work with a pretty amazing team.

They surprised me on Friday with a celebratory morning tea and gave me a neat gift of potted African violets, chocolates (yum) and a beauty gift. (I guess they must mean that I might need it for public appearances? ha ha). 

And I am most grateful as I work with a bunch of hard working people who give a lot to the students. Thanks team - you rock! In fact we have multicultural team mates of Maori, Samoans, Niuean, South African, Korean, European, Chinese and Fijian Indian and we all get along and support one another. My thanks to this wonderful team. 

I never thought when I began my work in education that I would ever be working at an indigenous tertiary organisation but I see that it was meant to be. In 1998 when I visited Vancouver, Canada I visited with some First Nations PhD students at the University of British Columbia. I was most impressed and made me think about what we didn't have at that time in NZ.

Much has happened since then with many Wananga (Maori tertiary learning organisations) now set up to delivery Certificate, Diploma, degrees to PhD status and it makes sense in positioning myself within an indigenous tertiary institution to begin sharing my stories. Feeling blessed...