On July 27th, 2019, Shaquille Shortland became the inaugural winner of the Impact Award for inclusion. Launched by the team at Inspiring Stories, The Impact Awards celebrates young New Zealanders making a difference with $20K awarded across four categories – climate, enterprise, inclusion and wellbeing. The Awards Ceremony took place on the during the weekend of Festival for the Future and attracted 400 guests, including senior leaders from business and government, as well as young leaders from across the nation. The Inclusion Award recognises young New Zealanders demonstrating leadership and taking action to create a more inclusive communities.
Shaquille (Shaq) is the Founder of Tūāpapa Māori Language Academy & Consultancy; a Māori driven social enterprise focused on education in Te Ao Māori, social development and youth leadership. Shaquille has worked with over 1,000 students personally, and has over 7,000 that are learning from the teachers and mentors that Shaq has trained himself. Alumni include Government officials, Judges, Doctors, and Principals. We caught up with Shaq to hear more about his experience…
Pictured from left: Guy Ryan, CEO & Founder of Inspiring Stories and The Impact Awards; Jacinta Gulasekharam – winner of the Evolve Leadership Summit scholarship; Shaquille Shortland, CEO of Tūāpapa Māori Language Academy & Consultancy – winner of the Inclusion Award; Sophie Handford, National Coordinator School Strikes 4 Climate – winner of the Climate Award; Jazz Thornton, CEO of Voices of Hope – winner of the Wellbeing Award; and Shay Wright – Co-founder of Te Whare Hukahuka – winner of the Impact Award for Enterprise
Q: Let’s rewind to the Awards Ceremony – what was it like?
A: It was a beautiful night. The atmosphere was amazing. All of the tables were split up with young leaders sitting at the table with senior leaders from places like Deloitte, TSB Bank, Ministry for the Environment, and other big organisations. Many of the connections have lasted beyond the evening too, including with the other winners – we're all finding ways to try and work with each other in the various kaupapa we're involve in.
Q: What difference has winning the award has made for you?
A: There’s been so many – a big one is exposure to the work we’re doing. I feel like especially for Māori, it’s hard for us to speak about ourselves, because we’re brought up to do the opposite our whole lives – letting our work, or other people speak for us. So to have that opportunity, that exposure, and have others that aren’t Māori or part of my own tribe speak about my mahi – that really helped. From that evening alone I was able to speak at the Champions for Change summit. There was a whole collective of about 50 CEO’s and leaders of big companies and banks, and that came from the CEO of Global Women being present at the awards. She just reached out because she was so inspired by our mahi, so there’s been a few opportunities like that as well as the actual prize money.
Shaquille with members of the Whangarei Future Leaders in their community
Q: What difference has this made for your work?
A: It’s had a huge impact. I’ve been working with 15 young rangatahi Māori, and most of them are young women who are mothers or single parents. They’re coming along to our wānanga and learning, and then taking it back home to their children so the impact is quite huge. Sometimes when I was attending other wānanga it was very exclusive, you had to pass all kinds of tests and it was quite intimidating, so I’ve created a different space that’s not as intense, but it’s still paying respect to the tikanga that I followed when I was learning, with an approach that’s adapted for the generation I’m teaching now.
For our next wānanga that’s coming up, we had about 150 applications from across the country in the first hour, and I had to take the post down after that because I only had 35 spaces. So there's clearly still a huge hunger here for our generation of māori and non-māori that are keen to come back to some of the more traditional ways of looking after yourself, each other, the environment, and relationships.
Shaquille Shortland (front right), with the Whangarei Future Leaders crew in 2019.
Q: What would you say to someone who’s thinking about applying for The Impact Awards next year?
A: I would definitely say to let your people convince you. I don’t usually put my name forward for these sorts of things. My crew put on a dinner for me and persuaded me to put my name forward. You can also nominate other people for the Awards too. So I think if you know of good people and think their mahi could benefit from this exposure, you can nominate them and ask them if they’ll put themselves forward.
Q: What role do you think Inspiring Stories plays in making a difference for young New Zealanders?
A: As well as being involved in The Impact Awards, I’ve been involved in the Future Leaders programme, which is also run by Inspiring Stories. The kaupapa of Future Leaders is amazing – led by some really cool people. It’s focused on leadership and making a difference locally, and brings people together from a range of ethnicities. Our group had fijian, indian, samoan, māori, european – that’s the way forward to solve the issues around racism that we’re facing. Bringing people together and uniting them under that same kaupapa of working for our community will make waves of impact across the country.
Q: What do you think New Zealand can do to better support young people to make a difference for our future?
A: We need to put more focus, more funding, into kaupapa like Future Leaders, but also kaupapa like Tuia – which I think is almost like a kaupapa māori version of Future Leaders where they attend the māori events like the koru neihana, the coronation of the māori king. They’re exposed to those areas like the kitchen in the marae. They do about 4 week long hui throughout the year. We need both of those. Especially with Future Leaders, getting to know your councillors, your mayor, your community organisations. But then that taha māori, having authentic marae experiences, helping the community, etc. If the government could put more tautuko or support into these initiatives that are trying to grow responsive community leaders, that would be the best move.