Power and Participation

Power. It is often the biggest elephant in the room and we need to be able talk about it. Who’s got it, who hasn’t, and how do we use it to authentically enable more inclusive engagement, participation, and action. 

This webinar traversed some of the big issues related to power and participation and shared two different examples of communities actively finding new ways to bring local voices and community solutions forward. 

Hosted by Denise Bijoux from Inspiring Communities, with panelists David Hanna – Inspiring Communities, Lizzie Makalio – Wesley Community Action and Angie Tangaere – The Southern Initiative.

Strengthening Our Villages

Community-led action plays a critical role in enabling wellbeing and helping make Aotearoa the best place in the world for children and young people, alongside appropriate support services.

Working in authentic, participatory and innovative ways many locally-led initiatives are weave these multiple strands so their village is better able to nurture and support their own.

Decades of international research and indigenous wisdom tells us that positive outcomes for children, families, whānau and communities are interconnected.

This webinar leant back to the old adage that “it takes a village to raise a child” and explores examples of how communities are building connectedness, mobilising resources to support local children, growing local leadership and stronger parenting support systems and enabling ‘child rich’ communities along the way.

Building community through kai sustainability

Using practical examples and real-life stories, our panel of speakers explored the notion of: feed each other – grow our community.

From community gardens to urban farming, developing system-wide approaches is now a mainstream conversation!

Our panel of speakers

Honey Thrupp

Sadly, one of our original panel speakers – Honey Thrupp from The Hughes Place Garden Project in Tāneatua – is, unfortunately, unable to join our kōrero. But we are delighted to welcome Julia Milne, Founder of the Common Unity Project Aotearoa, into our conversation.

Honey Thrupp is the recognised heart of the community in Tāneatua, Eastern Bay of Plenty, and Project Guardian of the Hughes Place Garden Project.
This garden of nourishment has transformed into a place of aroha and protection where whānau can come together to care for their young people while providing a guiding pathway to the social and community services available to everyone without feeling whakamā (shame).

“It has always been about the tamariki” – says Honey. This is what leads her to give the time and energy that she does to this mahinga kai (garden) on Hughes Place. In the last 4 years, Honey and the rest of the garden committee have not only planted and sown local food sources but managed fundraisers, community hui, childcare, holiday programmes, while creating a true sense of connection and belonging for their place.

Honey wishes to share with us how the garden has become so much more than growing kai, with stories of the challenges, opportunities, partnerships, and unintended outcomes experienced along the way. You can read more about the Hughes Place Garden Project within this story and impact report – co-produced by the garden committee in 2019.

Heather Lyall

Heather joins us to discuss a series of initiatives that she coordinates to encourage communities and individuals to think globally while acting locally. 

Specifically, Heather will share her journey alongside start-ups and projects such as the food forest in Puketāpapa. Waikowhai locals, schools, community agencies and Whenua Warriors have been busy planning and working toward planting fruit trees and veggies locally. fruit trees and veggies locally, with the goal to create a more sustainable future by initiating activities amd workshops that locals are passionate about.   

Heather feels she has an ultimate responsibility to change the system and will touch on the difficulties of obtaining funding, the different models that have worked, more sustainable ways of working and creating pathways for local employment. 

Eco-neighbourhoods are funded by specific local boards and managed by Auckland Council’s Live Lightly team. You can read more about this collaborative model here.

Bailey Perryman

Bailey is a Christchurch urban farmer and compost champion. He has a clear vision for Christchurch; a city where fresh local food is accessible and affordable. 
After completing a degree in environmental management, he spent many years working to rebalance both the diversity of the soil and of the food systems. This, he believes, will lead to greater economic and community wellbeing overall. 

“I have a long history of agriculture within my family, who were farmers, millers, church builders, and known for their especially radical views.”

Bailey will share with us how he is using his experience learned from community champions such as Margaret Jefferies; community composting systems; and community garden initiatives to help us all identify where change needs to happen.

Bailey will also share his knowledge around interpreting local and central government policy, reorganising and prioritising current systems and infrastructure shifts to enable big picture change. His goal? To give the power back to the community around local food systems, employment opportunities and knowledge sharing.

Denise Bijoux – Webinar Facilitator

Denise Bijoux is a multi-skilled community-led development advocate who works with communities, groups, iwi, hapu, organisations, business and government. 

Her expertise and experience, both strategic and practical, lead back to locally-led change, a concept she is highly passionate about. She works throughout Aotearoa, across  a wide range of areas, including health, social justice, community-led development, resilience, urban planning and government planning at local, regional and national levels. Her roles across these areas have encompassed social researcher, evaluator, facilitator, trainer and project manager. 

Stories of change and success: shifting towards thriving communities

Christina Howard hosted our webinar, talking with government officials and an iwi representative about the opportunities they co-created for greater impact and better relationships with communities.

Our panel of speakers shared experiences of moving from doing to to doing with communities. They explored how engaging with people and communities in different and meaningful ways can require a new approach; they’ll talk about what they’re learning along the way, their observations of the change that happens when you apply innovative responses.

Meet the panel:

Christina Howard

Christina Howard has a 30-year career spanning community, government, academia and philanthropy, Christina is driven by helping people create new ways of being and doing.

Her skills in research, strategy, facilitation, creativity and leadership mean she has been involved with projects to help people and organisations move through challenges in ways that require systems thinking to inspire positive change. She is deeply inspired by helping others think beyond ‘the way we’ve always done things’ to reach a place where they can collectively flourish – a passion that underpins her vocation every day. She works on various projects for Powerdigm.

Paul Jones

Paul Jones is Director Group Initiatives in the Building Resources and Markets team at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). His work at MBIE focuses on iwi Māori partnerships and capabilities. Paul also works as a secondee to an iwi organisation in the central North Island, on village development, infrastructure and capacity building.

He is from Wellington/ Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

Di Rump

Di Rump, Te Uri o Ngai Tara ki Mua Ūpoko o Te Ika me Ngati Raukawa, is the Chief Executive at Muaūpoko Tribal Authority. Di believes she’s exceptionally lucky that being Māori and working for her iwi in a kaupapa Māori environment automatically sets her up to be in a mindful leadership kaupapa. She believes to be an authentic leader requires being open to possibility no matter the challenges and barriers – and always putting people first. On top of her job, Di serves on the Inspiring Communities Board amongst several other alliance, governance and community forums.

Nikki Loodin

Nikki Loodin is currently employed by Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (WREMO) as an Emergency Management Advisor within the Community Resilience Team. The two patches she works in is Lower Hutt and Wellington CBD. She is passionate about building resilience at a community level, in order to reduce vulnerability in the face of hazardous events.

Dan Neely

Dan Neely is the Manager of Community Resilience and Group Recovery Manager at the Wellington Emergency Management Office (WREMO). Dan is a community development practitioner, who has happened to work in the Emergency Management space for more than 20 years. He leads a committed team that works with communities to enhance their disaster resilience across the region.

Rangatahi. Community. Leadership

This time we profiled how Rangatahi are leading locally. Their experience, what they are doing in places across the motu, the changes they are making, what is helping their mahi and the challenges they face. We also discussed how organisations and agencies can support this leadership. What they need to do to ahwi and amplify support for young people to turn their ideas into reality, and have an impact in their community and on a global level.

Using Community-Led principles and Inspiring Communities’ theory of change, we explored the relevance of community-led approaches in a youth-led space.

Denise Bijoux co-hosted this webinar with the bright and dynamic Talei Bryant. Amongst many other things Talei runs Inspiring Stories, Whakatane Future Leaders programme, does some wicked mahi with Ara Taiohi and is the Youth rep on the whakatane youth board.

Gemma Major is part of Te Aka Matua, a Community Youth Led initiative supported by Seed Waikato. She has been involved with the kaupapa and co-design group from its inception, Seed Waikato has back-filled with resources and held space for the project to flourish, Gemma will also provide insight into how Seed Waikato enables rangatahi leadership.

Madiha Ali Changezi is a full-time Law student at the University of Waikato, and part-time youth worker at Shama Hamilton Ethnic Women’s Trust. She is also a member of the National Advisory Board of the Red Cross as well as a Committee Member of Seed Waikato and a Board Member of Same Skies International. Madiha is passionate about storytelling, amplifying youth and marginalized voices and acting as a advocate for these groups.

Guy Ryan, CEO and founder of Inspiring Stories, made up our final star in this stellar line-up of speakers. Guy is an award-winning entrepreneur, leader and speaker. He is an Edmund Hillary Fellow, was awarded Young New Zealander of the Year in 2015, and has represented New Zealand at various international summits and leadership development opportunities.

A packed webinar profiling people and programmes that are changing the spaces and places in which we live, work and play.