Fire and Emergency NZ is using the Māori language to encourage more Māori recruits into their force. In Rotorua, new Māori branding is proudly being displayed on their trucks and signs.
Fire and emergency services attended over 75,000 call-outs within the last two years, which has lead them to search for more recruits.
Māori adviser to the Fire and Emergency services, Piki Thomas says, “There is only a small percentage of women and Māori within the service which is why we are extending the invitation to our families to get involved with the fire and emergency services.”
The Rotorua division of Fire and Emergency NZ has just rebranded a truck and signs with the Māori language to celebrate Rotorua being the first bilingual town in New Zealand- with the hope of attracting more Māori into the industry.
Central-Lakes assistant area commander Hamish Smith says, “The feedback has been really good, the feedback from the community has been exceptional and we now are looking at pushing it across the eight appliances we have here in Rotorua station.”
National Māori advisor at Fire and Emergency NZ, Piki Thomas says that there are 1,721 career fire fighters and around 11,000 volunteer fire fighters in service in Aotearoa.
“The majority thinks that the service only deals with fire but a lot of our work involves the community, safety messages and emergencies, so this job is more that fighting fire.”
The new re-branding for the Fire and Emergency NZ is set to go nationwide in the next few weeks.