A life of service to education and to her people
Marie Panapa lived a life of service.
When she died earlier this month she was the widely revered and respected matriarch of an education success story, Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
Aunty Ma, as she was affectionately known, died in Waikato Hospital after earlier suffering a heart attack at an event held at Apakura campus. She was 72.
For a woman who would have such a profound impact on education, Marie Nita Tito, who was from Te Atiawa iwi, had an ordinary Taranaki childhood.
Born in Waitara in 1944, she was raised by her nanny, Te Marewa Watson, after her mother died when Marie was three months old.
Marie attended St Joseph’s Primary, Waitara Primary, and Waitara High School and had an after-school job in a Waitara milk bar. It was here she met the man she would marry.
Rewi Panapa worked in Stratford but often came to Waitara to buy meat from the freezing works, and sometimes popped into the milk bar. Marie later recalled: ‘‘A handsome young man came in and bought a packet of Rothmans and a milkshake. He must have been about 19 years old at the time and he made an impression.’’
Marie left school in 1959 – becoming one of the first Maori women employed by the National Bank in Waitara – and met up with Rewi again at a dance competition in the early 1960s.
They married in 1963, and were together 42 years until Rewi’s death in 2005.
Soon after their marriage the couple moved to Waipa, where Rewi took up a position as a trainee nurse at Tokanui Hospital.
In 1970 Marie began working at Tokanui along with Rewi and in 1981 became a registered psychiatric nurse.
Son Charlie says the couple’s greatest pride was their children.
‘‘They strove to give us every opportunity to learn and excel, whether it was academia, sport or music. Mum herself was a fine musician who loved the piano and guitar and had a rich alto singing voice.
‘‘It was a dream of hers to be classically trained under the tutelage of Sister Mary Leo but sadly that never came to pass.’’
Charlie says Marie always believed education was the key to unlocking a brighter future, not only for her children, but for her people, which is why Te Wananga o Aotearoa was not her job, it was her passion.
In the early 1980s, Aunty Ma and Rewi worked alongside Rongo
Wetere and Iwi Kohuru (Boy) Mangu to see their vision of a fledgling Otawhao Marae project – created primarily for secondary school dropouts – come to fruition.
With little financial support, Marie and Rewi, along with others, took out mortgages over their homes to finance the project development, a risky financial move they would repeat three times.
Aunty Ma and her colleagues found innovative solutions to reengage with education those who had left school early, through teaching whakairo (carving) and raranga (weaving) at Otawhao. Their techniques reconnected many with their taha Maori, while setting the foundations for further higher learning opportunities at the then Waipa Kokiri Arts Centre.
Otawhao Marae was ultimately opened on the college grounds in 1985 and in 1989 the Waipa Kokiri Arts Centre became the first registered private training establishment in the country. It took the name of the Aotearoa Institute – Te Kuratini o Nga Waka. In 1993, the government recognised the institution as a wananga and in 1994 it changed its name to Te Wananga o Aotearoa.
Marie remained heavily involved in the organisation and was on the governing body, Te Mana Whakahaere, for eight years. Chairwoman Vanessa Eparaima acknowledged Aunty Ma’s meritorious service and outstanding contribution at the governance level.
Aunty Ma retired from teaching in 2004 but retained the roles of cultural ambassador and cultural adviser to the institution until her final retirement in 2016. Even then, she retained a role on the newly established Te Taumata Kaumatua committee and was a regular and popular visitor to the Apakura campus. It was there, on May 4, that she suffered the heart attack which led to her death in Waikato Hospital.
Te Wananga o Aotearoa Te Taiurangi, Dr Jim Mather, said Te Wananga was forever indebted to Aunty Ma, who had been an integral part of the rise of the organisation from its humble origins in Te Awamutu in the mid-1980s.
‘‘The legacy that Aunty Ma leaves behind – which is Te Wananga o Aotearoa – is enormous. She shared a vision of better outcomes for the casualties of the mainstream education system. This philosophy was later extended to make education more accessible to all within our communities.
‘‘It rightfully brought Aunty Ma a great sense of pride that the result of this vision was Te Wananga o Aotearoa, which evolved to become the second largest tertiary organisation in New Zealand.’’
Marie enjoyed history and travel and had planned to head to London to join her son who lives there. From there she wanted to trace her Scottish heritage and set foot on the land of her ancestors. Though that journey never came to fruition, there were many other places she travelled to, to learn about the people of the land and their struggles, including Australia, Canada, America, and the Pacific.
Aunty Ma is survived by three of her five children: Julie, Lisa and Charles.