25 August 2023

Last week, we celebrated our second Aotearoa Spanish Language Week across New Zealand with events happening up and down the country and a large street poster and social media campaign.

We were honoured to be hosted by Her Excellency The Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro, GNZM, QSO, Governor-General of New Zealand for the opening of Aotearoa Spanish Language Week at Government House in Auckland with seventy guests from across the Spanish-speaking community and language learning sectors in attendance.

On Tuesday 15 August, AUT hosted the New Zealand premiere of Greg Mortimer – En Busca De Una Tierra Solidaria, a documentary about Uruguay’s handling of an Antarctic cruise ship full of Australians and New Zealanders as the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The film was then also screened in Christchurch, Dunedin, and Wellington.

On Friday 18 August, our signature event in Wellington was a screening of Los Jaivas – Todos Juntos, a documentary on the legendary Chilean rock band, in partnership with the Embassy of Chile. This event brought together many from the Chilean community in Wellington together with lovers of Latin rock and finished with a stirring rendition of Todos Juntos.

There were Spanish-themed pub quizzes in Hamilton and Wellington, bilingual library storytimes and displays at libraries from Whangarei to Ashburton, dance classes, and language taster classes, and were also thrilled to see our language-learning cards distributed at restaurants across New Zealand.

We also had our biggest-ever week on social media, with our two videos featuring Victoria University of Wellington staff from Spain, Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico discussing different words used in their countries receiving over 20,000 views.