Monthly Archive for December, 2004

December 2004 – Paul Jeffries

Published by Paul Jeffries on December 22, 2004 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Olsem Wanam long Vanuatu…

December was a month of mixed emotions for me. I sit and think back over the year and am very pleased with the works we managed to carry out during the year and yet sadly it is coming to an end, of sorts….

My term as a participant in the World of Difference program has come to an end. A remarkable time for sure, there were plenty of highs and lows and a few somewhere in between.

There is so much to say and so many people to thank …To all those at Vodafone.. you know who you are….I love y’all heaps … you guys are great….the calibre of your staff Neil is beyond words…I made great friends and it was a pleasure to work along side you all…Jill, Michelle your support and patience (at times muchly needed), is a credit to you both… I’m sure this years WOD people will feel the same.. Bea, Ants, Kat and Dave…you rock…I’ll have you all again in Vanuatu at anytime.

Poppa Tom if you read this, that’s ditto for you.

The Vodafone New Zealand Foundation…..what can I say?? (plenty !!). With the financial, technological and human resources you made available to me as a person and the Malakula Medical Relief Trust as a whole, you pushed our project ahead by two years, conservatively speaking. I think the opportunity you gave me was one of the greatest things that could of happened for the peoples of Malampa, Vanuatu.

It was and is a privilege to have an association with you. Long may you continue in this remarkable way and long may you make a difference for the many people out there in need.

My fellow Trustees…guys without you, we couldn’t have traveled so far down the road to achieving what many said was unachievable..keep up the hard work.

Many things stand out as highs of the year, obviously participating in the WOD program being the main one, but many others:

Giving out over 150 red Vodafone World of Difference beanies was huge.(we still see them on the heads of the locals).

The transformer T shirts…. the hundreds of boxes of donated goods.

The memories of the Vodafone team building water tanks in Malampa….

Twelve 20,000 litre water tanks built this year…

The seven and eight 20 foot containers of charitable aid goods sent to Malampa and distributed.

The establishment of a local man to head our Vanuatu water project.

The belief that the Malakula Medical relief Trust is here to stay…….

The overwhelming knowledge that what we are doing is important, worth all the hardships and inconvenience at times, and is sustainable.

There weren’t too many lows for the year:

Being away from the family ranks right up there.

Getting malaria was no fun…nor relapses…

Raising the finance needed for each years continuance isn’t a lot of laughs and is very hard work (harder than working in the 40 degree heat).

Witnessing the poverty and needless deaths that occur on too regular a basis is the hardest to come to grips with…People still dying from TB or Diabetes needlessly.

The devastation on a regular basis from cyclones…mother nature can be a real B sometimes.

I guess the beauty of having lows are that you can have something concrete to get to grips with. Take the challenge head on and with help and tenacity, make a difference.

The only people left to thank are my family….My wife Andrea has been a rock…not the easiest of things having a husband swan around the pacific and be left at home to raise four kids. Matthew (10) Emma (8) and Thomas and Luke (4). The money was tight and the hours long.

I may be the one getting the headlines (and the tan) but Andrea is the one doing the hard yards… Love ya Babe..without you I couldn’t even start to make a Difference..

Vodafone…..an honour. Paulj

December 2004 – Margaret Suman

Published by Margaret Suman on December 22, 2004 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Volunteers
We are so grateful for the volunteers that help us at the nursery every week. We simply couldn’t get all that we achieve done with out their help. In a rough count of volunteer hours we figured that this year they add up to the equivalent of a full time person. So at Christmas time we took time out to thank them by giving them a special party lunch.

Our volunteers are so dedicated that they wouldn’t just come for lunch so we had to let them work through the morning while we set out lunch for them. It makes a change from the canned tuna, eggs, or peanut butter that we generally all share. And with our volunteers nothing says thank you like a cream cake! We love their suggestions and good company and hope to see many of them back next year.

Our youngest volunteers

Now that it is school holidays our children have joined us out at the Nursery. It is great having them out there and as this is our busiest time of year its lucky that they like being out there too. Sometimes they help us with our work and sometimes they bring some of their own projects to work on. Even a skateboard or two have found their way to the Nursery with some creative jumps and ramps set up well away from the plants. We can’t tell you how lucky we are to be able to work and have our children along side us learning about our passion. And much to our surprise we have some darn good nursery workers in the making.

Portobello School Visit

Back in June Portobello School came to the Nursery and repotted many of their plants from 2003 as well as taking some of the larger ones back to their own reserve. This month we finally had the opportunity to visit their reserve and see the years of work that has gone into it.

Their revegetation project has been running for 20 years now and each set of children that have come to the school contribute and leave their mark during their time there. There are trees with names on them and more than that why the individual who planted it, likes it. And everyone has at least one tree.

There were no shortage of volunteers to show us around and it wasn’t simply to get out of class because it was break time. The group we talked to knew every plant and every space in the reserve and the whole experience was very humbling. We think we are pretty passionate about what we do but these guys beat us hands down. They have also incorporated the study of yellow-eyed penguins into every part of their curriculum and we took the time to view a power point presentation some of the students had made of the nest boxes they had constructed and erected for birds on a local breeding site.

It was great to see the plants we had given them being so well cared for. The most amazing things was that they were just regular young people not special or privileged but they believed in what they were doing. They believed they had the power to make the world a better place and in doing it they felt good about themselves. When you saw the positive power a project like can have it really enthuses you to get out there and find the way to give more kids the opportunity to experience it. -Portobello school and teachers we stand in awe of you!

DOC Conservation Corps presentation

The most recent Conservation Corps students graduated this month and gave their individual presentations about their 6-month experience working with DOC. You may remember that they have set up a space at our Nursery too grow on their own plants for the Boulder Beach Reserve. We attended their presentation at the DOC office and Anita thanked them for their work at the Nursery as well as at Boulder Beach. We will look after their plants and seedlings over the summer break and when the next group of Con Corps start in February, we will plan another set of work days with them.

Mainland Products Ltd family winner
There are four family prizes for the Mainland “Help Our Hoiho” competition to visit Otago Peninsula and see yellow-eyed penguins. Recently we assisted Mainland with the school winners.

The Kinleys from Christchurch were the first winners to visit and they chose to bring their grandchildren. Mainland flew them into Dunedin and took them on a guided tour to see not only yellow-eyed penguins but also the Royal Albatross, NZ Sea Lions and fur seals.

Part of their tour involved a visit to the Nursery where we had the opportunity to show them what we are doing at the Nursery and discuss our conservation efforts. We love talking to people about our work and never run out of things to say. We are finding we are using the nursery more and more as a base to host people as it provides us with a space to talk about penguin conservation without being on site on the reserves and disturbing birds particularly during the breeding season.

Weather
2004 has brought one of the coldest Decembers on record and it has really slowed the growth rate for our tiny seedlings and older plants. This has made reporting our work at the nursery difficult because everything is not growing as it usually does.

The encouraging news is that although slowly it is all happening and we will just have to hope for a warmer January. We already have plenty of plants to plant this coming winter its just their size that could be improved.

We also have to constantly be looking ahead and we have already started the 2005 season seed collecting. There is still lots of coastline that needs revegetating.

Here’s hoping everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and the best for the coming year.

Cheers

Anita and Margaret

December 2004 – Tracey Napa

Published by admin on December 2, 2004 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Hi all and seasons greetings as Christmas is nearly upon us!
Wow this year has really flown by. This month has been a festive time leading up to the annual Open Day, a chance for all the Auckland clients and their guest whanau members to get together and celebrate the service of three years in the running.

Sprint, providers of the New Zealand Relay Service, kindly sponsored the catering and a three prize raffle. Chris Blum, the Sprint New Zealand account manager provided a demonstration of the TTY NZ relay service that he has been promoting in his new position since leaving the Deaf Mental Health Service.

It was a lovely day and an excellent opportunity to show the clients the array of visual, video, and photo resources that I have been developing during this year. I got some very interested feedback and it was great to be able to mix and mingle, discussing the many venues I have been visiting and inform the clients in person of the various services out in the community that they may access.

I sent a few clients away with the relevant information they requested to follow up future involvement in the Framework Bone carving
classes, so the promotional work I have laid out in the information resources seems to be more effective presented in the visual formats with photos as well. I have compiled these resources in order to inspire long after I have left the service early next year.

The photo album was a particularly popular source of interest and triggered some lively conversation. Also the Toi Ora live arts venue subtitled video was playing. It was a pleasure to meet our new manager for the first time, Cheryl ….and may I extend a warm welcome to her and congratulate her on her newly appointed position. Cherylwill be joining us next year after many years at Kelston Deaf Education and it is marvellous to have a woman so experienced in Deaf culture as our new Team Leader. We feel very fortunate to have her onboard the team.

Best wishes to all in the Festive season and have a fun and safe holiday!