Whina cooper biography examples

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Cooper later had his first marriage annulled and converted to Catholicism. Feeling less able to deal with controversies that still surrounded her as a family and community leader, she decided to leave Hokianga. Her performance was praised but she became frustrated because parents sent their children to school by rotation and because she was frequently needed at home to help with community affairs.

Bridget Williams Books, 1991

Frances Porter. The Waikato Museum is the kaitiaki (guardian) of her work. Her approach combined practical solutions with principled advocacy.

The famous 1975 Land March she led at age 79 represented the culmination of her civic engagement philosophy. He and his sons began to drain the estuarine swamp in preparation for sowing grass and grazing cattle.

This work remains the definitive written record of Cooper’s journey from her early years in northern Hokianga to becoming a respected Māori kuia (elder).

Several children’s books have also featured Dame Whina’s story, making her activism accessible to younger generations. Cooper organized local resistance efforts and built coalitions with other Māori leaders to present a unified front against land alienation policies.

The 1975 Māori Land March

At 79 years old, Dame Whina Cooper led her most famous protest – the 1975 Land March (hīkoi) from the far north of New Zealand to Parliament in Wellington.

This changed in 1975 when a coalition of Māori groups asked her to lead them in a protest against the loss of Māori land. She accepted and proposed a march from Te Hāpua in the far north to Parliament in Wellington, to dramatise Māori determination to retain their land and culture, and to galvanise Māori and Pākehā support. He invited her to attend a national hui at Whakarewarewa in June 1932.

She had a perceptive eye for colonial life and her 60 years of correspondence provides a unique picture of the life of a pioneer woman in New Zealand. The community reaction was one of shock and anger. In 1907, with financial help from her father’s friend, Native Minister James Carroll, she went to St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College in Napier for secondary education.

In 1907, she continued her education at Saint Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College in Napier for her secondary schooling.

Her education combined Western schooling with traditional Māori knowledge and values. In the late 1970s she wrote the first of hundreds of stories for Wendy Pye’s StoryBox reading program.

Joy wants children to see themselves and their own culture in the stories they read and, for 30 years, she has run writing workshops for people whose cultures do not feature in their children’s books.

Today the Kate Edger Educational Charitable Trust annually presents over 100 financial awards to help women fulfil their educational goals. Her father was Heremia Te Wake, a leader of Ngāti Manawa and Te Kaitutae hapu of Te Rarawa and the son of an American whaler. These programs dramatically improved living conditions for many Māori families.

Cooper advocated for equal access to vital services including education, healthcare, and social welfare.