Celebrating our biculturalism and multicultural communities with children at the heart

Matariki, Te Wiki o te reo Māori, Diwali, Chinese New Year, and our seven Pacific language weeks are always annual highlights for Barnardos in our mahi alongside children and young people, and especially in our work with children in their early years of life.

This year many children and tamariki in our Barnardos Early Learning Centres and Home Based networks celebrated in their communities with their kaiako, families and whānau.

Up and down the motu, these special days and weeks showed our community development approach in action through evening celebrations with haka, poi dancing, waiata, hāngī, arts and crafts, storytelling, language learning, and yummy kai from different nationalities.

These celebrations throughout 2019 have been a great way for our diverse communities to share and celebrate their own cultures, and for children and their families and whānau to learn and embrace cultures different to their own. They have built connectedness in many communities around Aotearoa New Zealand through culture and with children and tamariki at the heart of these connections.