'Kia Ora lady' urges reconnection

The woman who challenged the New Zealand Post Office and won the right to say "kia ora" when she answered the phone spoke at the National Mens' Maori Health Conference this week.

Naida Glavish, of Ngati Whatua, was working as a national telephone toll operator when her use of te reo to greet callers resulted in a telling-off by her supervisor, who insisted she used only formal English greetings.

When she refused, Ms Glavish was demoted but the issue sparked widespread public debate in 1984.

Ms Glavish became known as "the kia ora lady" and was eventually promoted back to her old job, then to the international tolls exchange.

Now the general manager for Maori health at the Auckland District Health Board, Ms Glavish continues to campaign for her people and her language.

On Wednesday she spoke at the conference, Tane Ora, held at the Marlborough Convention Centre.

Ms Glavish, who grew up in a traditional Maori community on the Kaipara Harbour in Northland, spoke only Maori and Croatian before she started school.

She was expelled from school twice but eventually became a teacher herself because she wanted to know what teachers talked about in the staff room, she said.

Ms Glavish spoke of the disconnection of youngsters from their culture and their whakapapa. As traditional roles changed because of outside influences, so values became lost and people were left isolated and lonely.

"What's happened to our men when their job is to stand in a government dole queue? What's happened to the mana of our men? What happened to make that happen?"

The mokopuna became "disco freaks and street kids," Ms Glavish said.

Only the grandmothers remained as the glue that held the whanau together as they waited for the mokopuna to return as they eventually would, she said.

"There's no reason why that (whanau) structure is not something we can go back to again."

Ms Glavish said there were areas of the human body that doctors could not touch or understand, and that was the "dis-ease" left by negative experiences.

Traditionally a sick person would be questioned by relatives to find out what past experience was making them sick: If nothing was found, it was time to see a doctor, she said.

Similarly, there was "dis-ease" in the health system and Ms Glavish challenged all those at the hui to address their own issues and that of the system.

- MAIKE VAN DER HEIDE/Marlborough Express