An online history project initiated by the children of tiny Mahana Primary School - a rural school 30km from Nelson - has won a Living Heritage Taonga Tuku Iho Award for 2009. The students recognised that their small community was changing and they wanted to promote a sense of belonging and pride in their past by finding out more about the lives of their ancestors and tipuna.

"Living Heritage, Taonga Tuku Iho Awards celebrate our country's heritage and or treasures," says NZ National Commission for UNESCO chair, Bryan Gould.

"UNESCO recognises that living or intangible heritage provides people with a sense of identity and continuity. Helping young people to learn from their past is a key way to help prepare them for the future." The online project involved all three classrooms that make up Mahana School and students report that they learned a lot more about their own families, their school, region and country. In spite of their isolation, students developed their ICT skills by contributing to their web page, producing podcasts and integrating ICT into performances. A variety of pictorial/photo resources from books and communities, local museums, archives and family collections were also called upon.

Living Heritage is a free, bilingual (English-Maori) online resource that enables schools all over New Zealand to develop and publish websites about heritage treasures of their communities. Living Heritage preserves history and culture in a digital format and allows children's voices to present a view of New Zealand on the World Wide Web. The New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO helped establish the Living Heritage Taonga Tuku Iho Awards to celebrate schools whose work contributes to UNESCO objectives by capturing heritage resources for future generations.

Living Heritage (Tikanga Tuku Iho) is a project of the 2020 Communications Trustin partnership with The Learning Centre Trust of New Zealand, The National Library of New ZealandTe Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, and Sun Microsystems. VisitMahana School's Living Heritage: http://www.livingheritage.org.nz/schools/primary/mahana/the-mahana-whakapapa/ index.php

Visit NZ National Commission for UNESCO: www.unesco.org.nz