Tohu Manaaki Award

NZSTA would like to recognise speech-language therapists’ contribution and action to manaaki others, embodying manaakitanga in and outside their workplace.

Manaaki encompasses how one recognises the mana of others by looking after people. It urges us to look for the best in a person and create opportunities to acknowledge a person in different ways. Demonstrating manaaki means we look after people in an empowering and mana-enhancing way.

Value: $1,000

Each nominee will receive a certificate recognising their commitment to manaaki.

Selection criteria

Nominees will have been observed to demonstrate:

• the generosity of time and knowledge.
• active support of others through whanaungatanga, rangatiratanga, aroha, and kotahitanga. 
• positively influencing others’ engagement with speech-language therapy through encouragement and creating positive opportunities

Evidence:

Evidence will take the form of reference/nomination detailing how the individual has demonstrated manaaki. 

Award Process:

The winner of the Tohu Manaaki Award will be determined by the Māori rōpū and will be announced in September.

 Applications close at 5pm on 30 June annually.

Apply now

  Any queries, please contact culturaldevelopment@speechtherapy.org.nz

Awarded in 2024 to Prof Suzanne Purdy

Suzanne is extremely generous with her time and knowledge and is an excellent example of Manaakitanga. She has shown manaaki to generations of SLT students through her role at The University of Auckland (first as the head of Speech Science and then as the Head of the School of Psychology). She is a staunch advocate for Māori students, especially when university processes are inequitable. She is a champion for the SLT profession, always giving her time at university open days and community outreach events.

She is “camp mum” at our Māori SLT hui-a-tau. At the past two hui she has spent her time in the kitchen, learning how to use the equipment, coaching the more inexperienced members through food preparation and hygiene, and buying things that we forgot to include on the shopping list. At the same time, she deliberately gets to know every student at the hui so that she can offer them encouragement and practical help.

One can’t mention Suzanne without acknowledging the unwavering support of her husband, Peter Stubbing. The Purdy Stubbing home is a place of manaaki, always open for university staff, students, collaborators, and anyone to stay for a meal or a night (or longer).

She is instrumental in community-based Māori SLT research. In 2017, she secured funding for Te Whaawhai Taki to undertake community-led stroke research in Ōpōtiki and was involved in every step of the mahi. She found inventive ways to support the researcher and make the research work when university policies and processes could not cater for kaupapa Māori research in a small rural town. She was also instrumental in supporting Nicky-Marie Kohere-Smiler in her iwi-based research into support for tamariki with speech, language and communication needs. She is an excellent example of how to keep manaaki in the research process.