Creating Child Rich Communities
In this final reflection, Project Lead Louise Petzold looks back on the Child Rich Communities journey, the lessons learned over the past decade, and the enduring movement to create places where mokopuna, rangatahi and whānau can thrive.
Creating places, services, organisations and communities that feel rich to tamariki, rangatahi and whānau is a social movement with its own momentum.
Filled with passionate people who are committed to returning full voice and mana to our mokopuna and whānau, this mahi has been ongoing long before Child Rich Communities was ever a thing, and it will continue long after.
We need an approach, a way of engaging that creates social change that doesn’t depend on money, governments and the latest trend. An approach that brings equity, kindness and strength, and is led by the people who have the greatest understanding of what is truly effective.
Focusing on our children, our mokopuna, brings a power that creates change that is bigger than any one of us individually, or any one organisation. Focusing on the wellbeing of our mokopuna is a powerful catalyst for creating resilient communities for the long term.
Why?
Because we all want the best for the children that are here now, and for the generations still to come. We are often willing to put our own or our organisations interests aside when it comes to creating better outcomes for our precious children and rangatahi.
We just sometimes forget that, in our busy, adult-focused lives.
Child Rich Communities was birthed as a remedy to this forgetfulness.
Beginning in 2014, it emerged as a response to deficit-based language and narratives about mokopuna and whānau. Its intention was simple: to help us to remember that when we focus on the wellbeing of our children and rangatahi, the whole community thrives.
When organisations move from delivering services and power-over approaches, to creating responsive spaces alongside tamariki, rangatahi and whānau, something shifts.
Mokopuna begin to feel heard. Their mana is recognised and uplifted. Their confidence grows. Their voices influence decisions. They develop a stronger sense of mana motuhake; the ability to shape their own lives, contribute to their communities and have agency over the futures they are creating.
This often leads to something deeper. Children and young people begin taking ownership of their spaces, their ideas, their services and their futures. They become more connected to the place they live and more invested in the wellbeing of those around them.
And that creates a ripple effect.
When a basketball court is built in response to rangatahi being asked what would help them to feel connected, and whānau help source materials, local businesses donate goods, neighbours bring scones, local youth social services attend to help, and the Men’s Shed bring tools to build a playground for younger children… a child rich community is being created.
Over time, through ongoing engagement with tamariki, rangatahi, and their whānau, services become more responsive. Initiatives are increasingly led by children and rangatahi. The voices that are often unheard, including pēpi, tamariki and and whānau, begin shaping decisions and influencing change.
Since 2014, Child Rich Communities has been lifting up the stories of these seemingly simple yet powerful actions because they consistently demonstrate lasting social change.
Communities have reported stronger connections, increased belonging, improved wellbeing, greater confidence, stronger identity, deeper participation, increased support, and a growing sense of mana motuhake among tamariki, rangatahi and whānau.
Whether through organisations pivoting to become more responsive, practitioners strengthening how they gather and act on whānau voice, or communities becoming more intentional about creating opportunities for mokopuna connection and leadership, these stories of change have all shown similar positive outcomes.
This social movement has been so ordinary that, in a way, it almost seems too simple.
At a time when our systems continue to become more complex and fragmented, these stories remind us that lasting change is built through relationships, trust, participation and shared ownership.
Over the last 18 months the Child Rich Communities Learning Cluster has brought together four organisations working in different contexts but all deeply invested in tamariki-led, rangatahi-led and change.
These sites have shown that the foundation of this work is the same. Remembering, every day, to shift the lens and see the world through the eyes of a child.
The updated Child Rich Community Practices reflect these learnings. They refresh the language of the original practices developed in 2014 while also recognising the importance of creating systems, organisations and communities that support healing, connection and wellbeing for whānau and our mokopuna, and for those who walk alongside them.
As Child Rich Communities wraps up this chapter, we will all need to continue finding ways to remember what matters. To maintain and celebrate our shared intention to create communities and systems where mokopuna can thrive.
To the many people who have been part of this Child Rich Communities story for the last decade, ngā mihi nunui.
To the communities who shared their stories, the speakers on our online kōrero, participants of our lunchtime network sessions, those who read our pānui or watched recordings, the team at Inspiring Communities. To the strategic rōpu, our core group who helped guide this kaupapa. And to the many practitioners, organisations, whānau who have carried the vision forward in their own communities.
Thank you.
We all know the mahi of creating child-rich and rangatahi rich places will go on.
Remember to pause, smile and celebrate the uplifting change this creates.
Kia whāngaia te rito, ka puāwai te harakeke.
When the centre shoot is nurtured, the whole flax bush will flourish.