Māori Language Week: Meet Sarah Page, supporting families in need

Māori Language Week (Te Wiki o te Reo Māori) is being celebrated from September 14 to 20 in 2026 and is an annual initiative to encourage the use of Māori language in Aotearoa New Zealand.

In the leadup to Māori Language Week, we spoke with Sarah Page, 2021 Westfield St Lukes Local Hero and 2025 Westfield Manukau finalist, to discuss the importance of Māori language and culture. Sarah is the founder of Kindness Collective, a community organisation that helps to support families living in poverty and hardship, with the goal of spreading kindness through community.

Can you tell us about Kindness Collective and what the day-to-day looks like?

We started in 2012 after a really challenging time in my life that made me realise that kindness is a great healer.

We’re a nationwide charity that’s supporting over 130,000 people living in hardship and poverty, people affected by family violence, illness and disability. We work alongside 297 different community partners to support these families in need.

We have a food bank, a Christmas joy store, and a warehouse in Otahuhu in South Auckland where we support whānau in need every single day.

Why is Māori Language Week important to your work and the community?

I don't whakakpapa Māori, so any insights come only from me - as a Pākehā person doing their best to uphold Titiriti O Waitangi within my organisation and my own little corner of the world.

At Kindness Collective, we’re continuing to grow our use and understanding of te reo Māori across the organisation. We try to incorporate te reo Māori naturally into our everyday communications, programmes and encourage our team to try to build their own confidence and capability.

Importantly, we want our use of te reo Māori to be meaningful rather than performative. We seek guidance constantly and work alongside kaupapa Māori organisations, community leaders, whānau and rangatahi to ensure the language and tikanga we use is appropriate and respectful as it can be. For example, our new youth employment programme, Tupu Rangatahi, was co-designed alongside rangatahi, with the name gifted by a kaumātua from a partner organisation that we work alongside closely.

For the communities we work alongside, language is about much more than words. It is connected to identity, whakapapa, belonging, culture and connection. Seeing and hearing te reo Māori in schools, workplaces, community organisations and public spaces is so wonderful and gives me so much hope. It's the most beautiful language in the world and we are so lucky to have it as part of Aotearoa's heritage and future.

This year's focus feels particularly relevant to us because it recognises that revitalisation doesn't only happen within institutions or silos, it happens within homes, marae, kura, workplaces, streets and communities. Every organisation, every community and every person has a part to play.

You were recognised as a Westfield Local Hero in 2021. What does this mean for you personally?

I'm really grateful to be a Westfield Local Hero because what it did is it shone a light on not me, but the community, this incredible community that we have that is all about supporting other people who are going through times of hardship.

How did the grant impact your organisation and community?

Being a Westfield Local Hero really helped Kindness Collective. It really helped get our message of community kindness out there to as many people as possible. The grants from Westfield really helped us get essentials into the hands of more people who need them.

Last chance to vote for your 2026 Westfield Local Hero. Discover the finalists in your area and cast your vote before 20 September. Find out more here.