On February 6 2015, New Zealand celebrates the 175th anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi, named for the small northern settlement in the North Island where it was signed. In 1840, a group of Maori signed the treaty with the British Crown, bringing New Zealand into the British Empire. Since then, Pa­keha—white New Zealanders—have grown to become the largest single demographic in the country.

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa takes students of all races and creeds, as long as they’re interested in learning about the Maori language and culture.

According to Statistics New Zealand, in 2013 the Maori numbered nearly 600,000, 15% of New Zealand’s total population. While that makes them the country’s second largest ethnic group, they are still far behind the Pa­keha’s 74%.

Despite their relatively small numbers, the Maori population is growing, with the 2013 numbers a near 6% increase on 2006. The culture is also experiencing new growth, a growth closely linked to the revitalization of the Maori language.

In the 175 years since the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, attitudes toward the Maori language and culture have taken a tumultuous path from oppression to celebration.

In 1867, the parliament passed the Native Schools Act, requiring schools to permit only the use of English and forbidding students to speak Maori. To help their children compete in Pakeha society, Maori parents also discouraged their children from learning Maori. As a result, the Maori language slowly began to disappear from daily life.

Studies indicate that at the beginning of the 20th century some 90% of Maori could speak the language, but by 1970, that figure had dropped to only 23%, with the majority of speakers being over the age of 40 and fewer than 1% of Maori five-year-olds being able to speak Maori.

But even as things looked grim for Maori language and culture, that same crisis helped inspire their revitalization.

At the Bunun tribal school in Taitung, young students learn traditional weaving from tribal elders, putting education back in the hands of the tribe.

In 1972, the activist group Ngā Ta­ma­toa (“The Warriors­”) presented a petition to the crown to have the Maori language taught in schools. Later, they became a driving force behind the establishment of “Kō­hanga Reo” (“Language Nest”), an initiative to have young children learn about their culture and language in Maori from local elders. With support for Maori growing, in 1987 the parliament passed the Maori Language Act, recognizing Maori as one of New Zealand’s official languages alongside English and New Zealand Sign Language.

Today the status of Maori, along with the number of speakers, has made great strides. According to the 2013 census, approximately 55% of Maori adults state that they can speak more than a few phrases in Maori, with 11% speaking it “well” or “very well,” 12% speaking it “fairly well,” and 32% able to hold basic conversations.

Some Maori words and phrases have even become part of the common New Zealand vernacular, with many Kiwis readily referring to the country by its Maori name, Aotearoa (generally translated as “Land of the Long White Cloud”). Even the Maori name of the language itself, Te Reo Māori, is commonly used. Te Reo Māori has also received a certain amount of state protection through policies such as having public signage in both English and Maori and requiring schools nationwide to offer Maori classes for interested students.

Also of note are the three “wānanga,” publicly owned tertiary institutions focused on Maori-oriented education. Of these, the largest is Te Wā­nanga o Ao­te­a­roa, with its main campus located in suburban Auckland.

Maori culture is the foundation of New Zealand, upon which later immigrants built.

The school that would become Te Wā­nanga o Ao­te­a­roa was first established in 1984 as an “educational halfway house,” aiming to provide educational opportunities to Maori who struggled with the “traditional” education system.

In 1993 the school was granted official tertiary status by the New Zealand government, letting it offer recognized degree programs. Since then, the school has grown to 150 locations around New Zealand, employing over 1300 faculty and attracting some 36,000-plus enrollments each year from Maori and non-Maori alike. Courses offered span a wide range, including Te Reo Māori, computer science, business administration, social work, and traditional arts.

Te Reo Māori is at the core of the school’s education, and their Maori courses are available to people of all backgrounds and ethnic groups. “It’s not only Maori that can learn Te Reo,” says Tu­ma­tawhero Tihi, a teacher of Maori at the Wā­nanga for seven years. In addition to Tihi, the school has 13 full-time teachers of Te Reo Māori, all themselves Maori and mostly native speakers of the language.

The Wā­nanga offers both bilingual and immersion courses. The bilingual courses are aimed at beginners and those below conversational fluency in the language, who can then transfer to the all-Maori immersion courses once they reach a suitable level.

As Tihi explains, all of the courses are ultimately focused on the Maori language, although that can include using it to teach traditional weaving and carving, as well as on-site learning on “marae.”

The Maori word “marae” refers to a meeting place in Maori settlements, a focal point of the community. New Zealand currently has over 750 marae, and it is at these marae that many of the most important events in Maori culture take place. Teachers and students at Te Wā­nanga o Ao­te­aroa make at least one visit to a marae each year, generally to Auckland’s Ora­kei Ma­rae, to learn about Maori tradition and culture from the local elders.

In recent years, in addition to work revitalizing the culture and language, many Maori have begun pursuing a revitalization of the associated natural environment through projects like the Ko Te Pu­kaki Ecological Restoration Project, focused on a large swath of land near Ora­kei Marae.

Charmaine ­Wiapo, project leader, explains that the project welcomes any international visitors to Auckland who would like to join in. By 2016, the project aims to have over 12,000 plants, including ha­ra­keke (New Zealand flax), growing in the area, bringing back part of the diversity of the natural environment of Maori culture.

Te Wā­nanga o Ao­te­aroa’s media liaison Nathanael Scurr says that Maori need to replant traditional crops and rediscover the traditional diet, because after over a century of European food, the Maori are being hit hard by soaring rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Overall, what many Maori are searching for, whether through language, culture, or lifestyle, is a return to their traditions and what is known in Maori as “kau­papa Māori.”

What is “kau­papa Māori”? According to Zu­zule, a member of Taiwan’s Pai­wan tribe who spent time at New Zealand’s University of Wai­kato, it is a kind of ideology of Maoriness, a cosmology that sits at the heart of what it is to be Maori.

It is this same internally driven indigenous consciousness and confidence that Taiwan’s Aboriginal education efforts lack, adds Zu­zule, who now works for the Tai­chung City Indigenous Peoples Commission. The effort to open “tribal schools” around Taiwan, which began two years ago, is an attempt to get Aboriginal education back into the hands of the Aboriginal community.

Doing just that—putting education back in the hands of Taiwan’s Aboriginal tribes—has been the mission of Chen Kun-­sheng, head of the Council of Indigenous Peoples’ Education and Cultural Affairs Section, who has been pushing for “tribal schools” since 2012.

Put simply, such schools are government funded, with local elders teaching children from the tribe, passing on their particular culture. Tribal schools offer classes during summer and winter vacations, explains Chen, and thus do not interfere with the established educational system.

In the past two years, such schools have been set up in Hua­lien by the Amis tribe, in Ping­tung by the Paiwan, in Yi­lan by the ­Atayal, and in Tai­tung by the Puyuma and the Bu­nun. The goal is to have at least one school for each of Taiwan’s 16 Aboriginal peoples within the next decade.

Classes at such schools must cover eight major areas—traditional faith and ritual, tribal history, tribal ethics and taboos, tribal language and literature, tribal social structure, traditional life skills, traditional arts, and environmental protection.

The schools are aimed at young people between the ages of 12 and 17; starting at 12, says Chen, is compatible with most tribes’ traditions, as 12 marks the start of the transition to adulthood and becoming a full member of tribal society.

The Pai­wan Mt. Dawu Tribal School, for example, has accumulated 71 enrollments over the past two years, with students coming from eight villages around Ping­tung. At the school, they are taught the traditions of the Pai­wan, from hunting and fishing to millet cultivation, weaving, and even marriage ceremonies.

Each tribal school has had to accumulate teaching materials and teaching plans for itself, but to address this the Council of Indigenous People has laid out a plan to collect and organize what the schools have learned. By this summer at the earliest, the council expects to be ready to promote a systematic approach to tribal education.

According to the Ministry of Education, Taiwan is currently home to approximately 300 “key Aboriginal schools,” where one third or more of the students are registered as Aboriginal. Such schools, according to the Aboriginal Education Act, are required to offer education on indigenous language and culture. With the government unable to fund the establishment of tribal schools nationwide, this compromise offers more students a chance to learn about traditional culture using materials from tribal schools during summer and winter vacation courses.

Taiwan is home to 16 recognized tribes speaking 42 languages and dialects, and their cultures can vary dramatically, says Chen. “Only if we can do all in our power to preserve and maintain the indigenous cultures we have can we truly realize the ideal of multiculturalism.”

It is because of this tremendous diversity, Chen says, that efforts to revitalize Aboriginal culture and languages in Taiwan will be far more difficult than those in New Zealand. While it will be a long and hard road, it is one that we can wait no longer to set off down.