Series Classification: PG (Parental Guidance) | Watch and listen to the series here from Wednesday, April 10, 2024
The Forgotten Soldiers of Niue: Wednesday, April 10, 2024 (VIDEO) | Friday, April 12, 2024 (PODCAST)
This is the little known story of the Forgotten Soldiers of Niue: 150 men plucked from their island paradise and sent 17,000 kms away to the cold frontlines of France during World War I.
The Niuean soldiers never made it to the frontline, however. Many instead died en route with the introduction of diseases they hadn't been exposed to.
Leki Jackson-Bourke takes us on a journey through history to discover why these men fought and died for a war they didn't understand and a king they didn't know. He learns of the men's incredible legacy in Niue, as well as his own special connection to them and the war.
I'Iga Pisa, Samoa's Unsung Hero: Wednesday, April 17, 2024 (VIDEO) | Friday, April 19, 2024 (PODCAST)
In 1915, Samoan resistance fighter I’iga Pisa was condemned to exile in Saipan by the German colonisers of Samoa.
In an extraordinary feat, he escaped from his 5-year exile sentence by secretly carving out an outrigger canoe and paddling from Saipan to Guam: a distance of more than 150 km over a period of several days in which he navigated using the stars.
He had taught himself German during the colonial period of German rule in Samoa, but upon landing in American-ruled Guam, he learned New Zealand had taken over as Samoa's new colonial rulers.
I'iga taught himself English and travelled by boat from Guam to Hawai’i, another U.S. territory in the early 1920s. In Hawai'i, he worked in a printing firm and improved his English with the aim of returning to his homeland of Samoa and fighting for Samoan sovereignty - this time against the NZ administration. To this end, he worked for the Department of Samoan Affairs until 1942. In 1962, I'iga became the only exiled Samoan revolutionary to survive long enough to see Samoa win back its freedom from NZ.
Papa Tom Davis, From the Seas to the Stars: Wednesday, April 24, 2024 (VIDEO) | Friday, April 26, 2024 (PODCAST)
Papa Tom's quest for truth, history, and culture has taken him around the world and even out to space, but it was in Aotearoa and the Cook Islands that it all began...
The extraordinary Cook Islander, the first person from NZ and the Pacific to work for NASA, was one of the grandfathers of traditional vaka sailing in the Pacific, and who revolutionised economic reform in the Cook Islands. He is still little-known to generations of young Pacific people and the NZ public in general.
This mini-doco biopic will look at the life of this extraordinary Cook Islander, who smashed new frontiers in space and the ocean in a life that spanned so many fields of work.
NZ On Air Photo: NZOA
