Monthly Archive for April, 2007

April 2007 - Richard Aston

Published by Richard Aston on April 29, 2007 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

I have been working on details of our national expansion over April.

 

The intial part of the work in deciding which NZ towns to target I called “due diligence”, ie backgrounding pontetial towns to see if we are needed there, if other organisations are doing the work already, what local funding sources are there and if the local community groups would support us opening up in their town. The first obvious target was Hamilton but our due diligence process revealed one community group who were quite reluctant to support us, they had a mentoring programme in place that while not in the same area of need as ours did recruit mentors. They were worried we would take all the male mentors in Hamilton. It seems our reputation for recruiting male mentors precedes us. Personallly I think the more different mentoring programme the better, more publicity will create greater awareness and therefore more people will be stepping up to volunteer. I decided our first expansion project should not start with any local controversy so decided not to set up Big Buddy in Hamilton until much later. It was a pity because we had indentified a pontential coordinator and group of supporters already. I decided to crank up the focus on Wellington, then Christchurch. We have been advertising for a Wellington coordinator, via papers, internet etc and getting a fair number of inquiries, no candidate really stands out yet.

 

One of our major funders ASB Community Trust commissioned documentaries on their key charities including Big Buddy, we organised for their doco maker to meet with two Big Buddy pairs.

 

I have have been building some relationship with Banardoes this month. They are very supportive of our work and want to find ways we can work togther. One practical outcome may be our Wellington office will be sited in their new community hub in Taita (lower Hutt), my fellow WOD winner Deborah Morris has been part of this.

April 2007 - Paul Fong

Published by Paul Fong on April 29, 2007 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

On April 2, four young men arrived at the Youth Quest premises. All with pasts involving CYFS and Police for various offences ranging from theft, assault, robbery, drugs and other offences. Day one: We arrived in the bush and the start wasn’t great. The young fellas were swearing their heads off, saying ‘this course sucks’ and every great word under the sun. The fact that the forest had a fire ban didn’t help as they were hanging out for a smoke (and had no access to drugs). I got one of our mentors to teach them how to tie ropes into different types of knots and that went down like a cup of cold sick, ‘What do we need to know this ****** s**t for?’ Little did they know that lesson would be very important to their survival in the bush. After putting their packs on and carrying all the gear for about four hours (with all the complaints that go with being out of your comfort zone) I stopped them around 11pm and told them to build a shelter for us all to sleep under. Well the comments, ‘does anyone remember how those knots went!’ Everyone had a good sleep even if it was only for about five hours. For those not familiar with jerrycans they are plastic containers which carry water and when full weigh around 20kg. The next two days would see us walking with our jerrycan, a box full of ropes and food over 25km. Eight of those kilometres were along a beach, through thick sand and over trees and debris. This is a really good way to see the character of a person. By the end of that walk we had four different young men on our hands. Not only were they in awe at how they had accomplished something so big, they had also gotten close as we all needed to work together to get through the days. The attitudes had all but gone and to see them flourish in an environment which doesn’t have mobile phones, cigarettes, electricity and any other comforts of the world was amazing. Here we had boys catching eels, smoking them, eating them and enjoying being out in the bush. The following week at the military camp was about setting a routine. The boys got up early, showered, getting themselves fed, cleaned their rooms, the kitchen, toilet blocks and the dining rooms. They were given a daily budget and had to buy food to cook for that day and also plan and run an activity within that budget involving everyone for that day. It was amazing to see them enjoying being involved in decision making and asking ‘What food costs less? Do we get this bread or budget bread and have more money for the activity later?’ We had a blast doing activities with them including kayaking, go carts, bumper boats and yet they still planned well enough to have money to buy great food which they cooked. One morning during the camp i get a knock on my barrack door and there are four young men who were once swearing like nothing about hating the course standing there with breakfast in bed for me. Well that has to be a first!! The boys were happy to finally get home and are settling into their newly learned routine. Mothers can’t believe their sons are up early and have had breakfast and are ready to go - some of them didn’t normally wake till after 3pm. Three of the four boys are on the course voluntarily. In other words they can leave any time (should they want to) but they are waiting at their doors every morning for the mentors to show up. And if their mentors are late they are immediately texting to ask where they are. The mums are amazed at the changes in their young men and we are only four weeks into it.

April 2007 - Maree Burns

Published by Maree Burns on April 28, 2007 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

In amongst the EDEN activities April included some opportunities for catching up and self care for me! I took a week’s annual leave and also enjoyed the Easter and Anzac holidays. It’s funny how I still seemed to fit about a month’s work into the remaining time however! Perhaps most excitingly this month, EDEN’s new part-time administrative and accounts person Louise started work with us. I have spent quite a bit of time bringing Louise on board and apologising for the state of our office and filing!!! Louise is an ‘organiser extraordinaire’ and we are thrilled to welcome her to EDEN. This role has been made possible by the funding that has been freed up as a result of the Vodafone NZ Foundation. It is making a huge difference to how EDEN’s resource centre is run and to all our systems which are being updated and streamlined. While this work is the behind-the-scenes stuff, it is so crucial for keeping the agency ticking over and for allowing the other EDEN workers to provide services to people with eating issues and to the community, without having to incorporate administration into their workloads. Employing an admin/accounts person was also a key part of my fundraising goal for EDEN in 2007 as it means we have somebody concentrating on budgets, monitoring funding levels, and helping with predictions and strategic planning for the agency - all vital stuff for EDEN to continue to grow and to maximise our service provision to the community.

This month I contributed a couple of articles for EDEN’s newsletter - about my trip to the Ministry of Health and about my role at EDEN. I was also involved in the mailout for that - a big job stuffing envelopes that never gets any easier! I have been continuing with brainstorming with several possible partners re what EDEN might do to celebrate International Love Your Body day in October. This has involved plenty of meetings and emails about the feasibility and costs of different ideas and we have our fingers crossed that we will be able to mark this day with an event that raises awareness of the issues and also generates funds for our work with disordered eating. Partnering with other community agencies and information provision has also continued to be a focus this month and I have been working alongside colleagues at Netsafe: The Internet Safety Group. We are preparing a conference presentation on Cybersafety and Eating Issues for both the Body Matters and New Zealand Health Teachers Conferences in Dunedin in June/July. This takes EDEN’s conference appearances to four at these meetings as we are also presenting on EDEN’s BodyImage Wellbeing in Schools Education programme with the hope of generating more interest in this health promotion initiative in schools. My other usual EDEN commitments continued in April - my graduate diploma in counselling at unitec, seeing clients at EDEN, taking phone calls and answering email queries for information and support, supporting Deb in her work with the Body Image Leaders in schools, and co-ordinating the work of the agency on a day-to-day basis.

April 2007 - Deborah Morris-Travers

Published by Deborah Morris-Travers on April 28, 2007 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

During April my main focus was on communication with Every Child Counts supporters and networks, with Members of Parliament, and with the news media, about the importance of children having the same legal rights to protection from assault as adults have.

I drafted a comprehensive media kit designed to highlight the evidence in support of the Section 59 law change, and address the myths and misinformation that had gained so much prominence in the debate.

I also worked to develop articles for placement in magazines and newspapers.

In addition, I was in regular communication with MPs encouraging their support for the bill.

As part of the wider network of community groups working on to reduce assaults on children, I assisted with preparations for a cross-denominational Church service celebrating children and calling for peace in our families. The service was attended by the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, MPs from all parties, community groups and the news media. Following the service our silent procession delivered a list of 170 supportive Church leaders, to the Prime Minister.

Separately, we also arranged for an MP to visit his local school so that children could ask questions about the place of children in the political process.

I attended advisory meetings with the Office of the Children’s Commissioner to assist in the development of a new tool to regularly report on child well-being.

In April, Every Child Counts received confirmation of funding to print new brochures and I worked to finalise the copy for the printer. This was part of preparing for our attendance at the Plunket Centenary Conference in Dunedin in May.

We also started preparing for our own conference, to be held in Wellington in September. And so the work continues!

April 2007 - Billie Paea

Published by Billie Paea on April 28, 2007 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

This month has flown by so fast, with different activities and events.

 

To start the month off the studio has been going well in trying to market DZIAH Dance Studio as a company - to create more funding to help the flow and running costs of the building. We’ve been looking at different sponsorship and funding opportunities to help create the dance programs we wish to benefit the youth in the community.

 

I’ve met with heaps of possible partners to come on board but need some solid sponsors to get things to where we want to be. We’re always looking for help, not only financial support; but knowledge from business minded people and those with a passion for what we’re doing - which is to create a way forward for our next generation.

 

This really begins by interaction with our kids at an early stage in their lives and we are using dance as a draw card to give the kids inspiration and hope. We were lucky to have Tommy the Clown (the creator of the Hip-hop dance style Clowning and Krumping) to our studio. This was a great experience for some of the kids in our area. We teach classes on clowning and krumping and for the kids to get an opportunity to see the man himself in person was priceless … you should have seen the kid’s faces!

 

If you haven’t seen the movie RIZE, I highly recommend it. It’s an inspiring story about a big hearted man who wants to help youth in Los Angeles and keep them off the streets. He gets them to dance and teaches them to release the pressures of life (and their anger) into the art form which is known as krumping. His dance style has taken the world by storm.

 

Other highlight of the month was DZIAH’s dance concert ‘History’ on the North Shore. We had a sold out crowd of 600 people and it was an inspiring event for all ages. We had an amazing response for classes and programs out in North Shore and it’s great to have the chance to build another network within Auckland. We had hundreds of kids coming up to us asking how they could become a member of DZIAH. We’ll be starting more classes to cater to them and have help with venue and advertising. Remember everyone - Our words can go just a mile, but our actions can go a thousand miles. Thanks for all your support and contact me if you’d like to help our cause.