11:17 AM |
Making a difference: Breaking the cultural barriers
By KIRAN CHUG - The Dominion Post
In an occasional series, we look past the big names recognised in the New Year honours list to profile behind-the-scene achievers in our communities.
Liz Richardson can remember looking around her secondary school classroom and wondering why she was the only "brownie" in the room.
When she got to university to study science, the lack of Maori and Pacific Island students was even more apparent, and spurred her to make a difference.
Since then, she has focused her work on increasing the number of Maori and Pacific Island students who study science, engineering, architecture and design at university and at postgraduate level, for which she has been awarded the Queen's Service Medal.
After finishing her science degree at Auckland University, Mrs Richardson, 59, decided to tackle the classroom disparity, which she said struck her as odd. "There has been a chronic under-representation since the year dot."
In setting up Te Ropu Awhina at Victoria University, Mrs Richardson aimed to establish an on-campus whanau environment to support Maori and Pacific Island students studying science and engineering. "I see their potential all the time, and it's not realised as it could be."
The centre also aimed to encourage more students into those subjects. This was being achieved by students and graduates working with and discussing their experiences with community groups in outreach programmes.
"The big effort we put in is to support them, and then when they go out into their communities, their stories go back with them."
Te Ropu Awhina was now in its eleventh year, and Mrs Richardson said more than 700 students had attained degrees through the centre.
She hoped to attract more Maori and Pacific Island students to postgraduate study through the centre, and said that was also now starting to happen.
"There's still a lot to do, but it's exciting for us that the movement to postgraduate study represents a rising of expectations among our students."
Mrs Richardson has also served as an education and ICT adviser to the Pacific Islands Forum.
There had been too many historic and cultural barriers to tertiary study for those ethnic groups, and it was those that she had worked to break down, she said.
Now, with role models working within the community who had "walked that pathway" and had positive experiences, the under-representation would continue to change.
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pacific islands media association
pima.nius@gmail.com
aotearoa, new zealand
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