Cultural events are listed here with basic background details. For specific events, dates, and times, please see the Featured Events on the Cultural Calendar main page.

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Cook Islands Language Week celebrates the identity, languages, and culture of students from the Cook Islands and helps all New Zealanders journey towards shared cultural understandings.

Learning a new language gives us insight into new ways of thinking, and to different beliefs and cultural practices. Everyone who learns the languages of the Cook Islands helps to preserve them.

The Cook Islands community are the second largest Pacific ethnic group in New Zealand making up 20% of the Pacific population (Census 2013). In the 2018 New Zealand census, 80 532 people identified as Cook Island Māori. (MINISTRY of EDUCATION)

LIKELY DATES

First week of August 2023, Cook Islands Independence Day is also celebrated on 4th August annually.