June 11, 2021
MWWL past-president Dame Georgina Kirby dies
Māori Women’s Welfare League past president Dame Georgina Kirby has died in Auckland Hospital, aged 85.
The Ngāti Kahungunu kuia, from the Smith whānau of Nūhaka, was brought up in Rotorua, where her father was a farmer.
She and her late husband Brian worked for many years for the Post Office and in their own businesses before she was elected league president in 1983.
During her four year term she launched stop smoking and weight reduction campaigns as part of the league’s Decade for Health programme, and she also secured a $250,000 seed grant from the Department of Māori Affairs Mana enterprise loan scheme to set up the Māori Women's Development Fund.
That fund now has more than $4 million in assets and has helped hundreds of wāhine into businesses through loans, training programmes and mentoring.
Dame Georgina Kamiria Kirby will be taken tomorrow to Te Māhurehure Marae in Point Chevalier, where her funeral service will be held at 10am Monday.
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