In the summer of 2013/2014, one of Ngā Pae o te Maramatanga’s summer internship projects looked at the factors that were impacting Māori and Pasifika student success in higher education. This Ngā Pae funded research project examined the issues surrounding the fact that Māori and Pasifika students were under-represented in tertiary education, despite important interventions such as the University of Auckland's Tuakana programme. The internship project relied on focus group interviews with affected students, both male and female, at different university educational levels and asked them about their experiences, the targeted admissions schemes such as Tuakana and the solutions they would recommend for solving the problems faced by these students.

One of the outputs of the project was an article in our AlterNative journal (Volume 10, Issue Number 2, 2014) which identified three broad themes which, alongside a positive indigenous ethnic identity, contribute to indigenous students’ educational success. Another key output, launched in March of 2015, was the “I, Too, Am Auckland” video series, linked to from this page. These video’s draw on the focus group interviews and explore perspectives provided by Māori and Pasifika students, across a variety of disciplines, on solutions to everyday racism and colonialism. The “I, Too, Am Auckland” team consists of David Mayeda, Sarah McLean, Chelsea Tevaga, Lisa William, Raagini Vijaykumar, and Milon Tesiram. The videos below were produced by Chillbox Creative To get ongoing updates you can link here to the: “I, Too, Am Auckland” Facebook page and also follow the project on: Tumblr