Roni Nuku will be filling out a growing list of achievements when she is capped with a Bachelor of Arts (Māori) at EIT’s graduation on Friday.  (March 21)

Well-known for her prowess on the water, Roni was in the team that won a gold and two silver medals at the world waka ama championships held four years ago in New Caledonia.

Whānau is hugely important to this mother of five.   Husband Mike also scored four medals in the 2010 champs, and his father was another to take part.

“Having the family there competing in the same world championships was amazing,” she says.

So graduation is going to be extra special with daughter Puhiwahine also to be capped with a Bachelor of Arts (Māori).

“At 19, what a beautiful set-up for her and her family,” Roni says of Puhi, who recently gave birth to a daughter – the family’s first grandchild.  This year, both women are studying for a graduate diploma in secondary teaching and started together with a summer paper.

Born and raised in Flaxmere, Roni’s tribal affiliation is Ngāti Maniapoto.  Based in the Waitomo-Waikato region, the iwi traces its whakapapa back to the arrival of the Tainui canoe.

“It’s a long way to go home,” she says of her marae at Marokopa.  “There’s no cellphone coverage or petrol station and you can only get there by barge.  You have to take everything with you.  It’s the perfect place to be with your kids!”

Roni met Mike when they were both students at Karamu High School and the couple moved around before returning to Hawke’s Bay to settle down with their family.  Mike completed a Bachelor of Arts Honours (Māori) at EIT and he now teaches at Te Kura Kaupapa o Te Ara Hou, a total immersion school in Onekawa, Napier.

The couple are part of a small group designing a project-based learning school which they hope to open in the Ahuriri area in the near future.   The proposal, supported by Tai Wānanga and local iwi, is for a high school curriculum based on the ocean and conservation and incorporating learning which blends traditional knowledge and modern technology.

The Ministry of Education is considering the proposal and if it gets the go-head, Roni would like to be part of the school.  She says students would learn to harvest, cook and preserve their own food, use subjects such as mathematics to develop navigational skills and study history by looking at traditional methods of seafaring and conservation.

Roni says managing her degree studies and family commitments was hard, “but it’s awakened the other side of me now.”

“I always wanted to learn te reo at school but I didn’t have the passion for it then.   I wanted to have children and set them up first.   Now it’s my turn, my youngest started school this year.”

While the family is deciding how to best celebrate this week’s double graduation, Roni is confident none of them will ever stop learning.