7months ago my small young family moved away from our hometown and families. it was the hardest and craziest thing we had done. we were breaking a generation strong cycle of negative living. We started life isolated in a whole new region 12 hours from home. and almost by accident we started our te reo maori journey when we enrolled our babies in the nearby full emmersion kohanga reo. we had no choice but to learn and use what we knew in te reo maori. it was really unexpected but our world rapidly started to change. we had no idea that te reo maori and te ao maori would heal us and improve our lives. we are kinder people, we hold higher standards for ourself and have started to succeed and accomplish stuff that we actually can’t believe we’re doing. learning te reo maori was such an unexpected journey for our whanau to take on but it has been the most giving and healing thing for our family. and it’s spreading to the family we left behind and holding us together positively. our answer for healing and growing found us through te reo maori. straight up we have turned our life’s around because we chose to live in te ao maori and learn te reo maori. i guess that’s our ‘why’ because our life is better off with te reo maori as our main language. this te reo maori promotion thing is important cause there’s familys like ours out there who need the type of healing we are getting!