The Cook Islands Breast Cancer Foundation is hosting a fundraising event next weekend in a bid to help local women with breast cancer detection.

The fundraising event to be held on July 7 at Tamarind House offers an opportunity to spend an evening with two of the most interesting and acclaimed women in Aotearoa New Zealand media.

Both are household names there – and will be known to most Cook Islanders too – for their work in radio and television; for which they have both received multiple awards.

Moana Maniapoto is known to many as a singer song writer, and a television current affairs presenter and interviewer. Sharing the stage with her will be another Maori woman with a stellar career in the New Zealand media; as a presenter, interviewer  and producer, for both radio and TV, Carol Hirschfeld.

Maniapoto (MNZM) is an award-winning journalist, singer, songwriter, documentary maker and advocate. Her band, Moana & the Tribe, has played countless international stages taking their haka-funk-dub-fusion and politically charged music to the Herodus Atticus (Athens), Sydney Opera House (Australia), Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland), Sziget (Budapest), Le Club (Moscow) and the Shanghai World Expo, just to name a few.

Carol Hirschfeld. goingwestfest.co.nz/24062707

Hirschfeld is one of New Zealand’s best loved broadcasters, having had a lengthy career as a presenter and producer with both TVNZ and TV3. She is best known for her role as a TV3 News presenter alongside John Campbell from 1998 until 2005.

In 2009, she became head of programming at Maori Television and then went on to be the head of content at Radio New Zealand and head of video/audio and content partnerships at Stuff. Hirschfeld is currently the executive producer of TVNZ’s Breakfast programme.

The two media stars will be guests at the Cook Islands Breast Cancer Foundation dinner at Tamarind House at 5pm on Sunday, July 7; and in a unique arrangement, after being introduced, will interview each other.

Jaewynn McKay, the president of Breast Cancer Cook Islands, knows both ladies well and expects they will provide a both entertaining and thought provoking discussion.

“This dinner is the first in a series of activites to mark the first 20 years of the CI Breast Cancer Foundation planned over the next 10 months. As we all know the world changed when Covid hit, prior to 2020, the Foundation had for 16 years supported those women from Australia who gave up their time to come and run our breast screening programme. They have been able to come once post the pandemic – in 2022 when 809 women were screened from Rarotonga and the Pa Enua.”

In addition to supporting the team from Australia, the Foundation has funded the airfares for women from the Southern Pa Enua to come to Rarotonga for breast screening.

The hospital is currently between mammogram machines, and in the early stages of procuring a new one. 

Tickets for the evening, which cost $65 can be purchased from The Computer and also by calling one of the following board members. Karlene on 54389; Myra on 70360; Dawn on 56303 and Lesley on 58509.

• CIBCF