Kia ora koutou, Greetings, and As-Salaam-Alaikum,

1. Upcoming Public Zoom Conference Call

Please join us for our Public Zoom video conference on Wednesday, 13 November 2019 at 4:30pm. The link is: https://zoom.us/j/970709570

The questions we will be discussing in the Zoom call are as follows.  If you are joining us, please have a think about these questions because your feedback is important to the development of our conversation approach and format.

1) What consultations have you attended in the last five years?  How did the consultation go?  How did it feel?  What was the result?

2) What meanings to you ascribe to the words Belonging, Diversity Representation, and Inclusion?  How do each of these words make you feel?

3) Are there any alternative words or concepts that you would like to bring to the table and talk about?

We would like your permission to record the conversation.  The recording will only be seen and heard by IAC staff for the purposes of collating your feedback.  We will delete the recording within a month of the call for security purposes.  Any notes taken from the recording will not identify any individuals, and a summary may be uploaded to the website.

2. The 2020 Conversations

Anjum and Nona will be conducting conversations across the country from February to September of 2020.  We have chosen to call them conversations rather than consultations because the word consultation implies an “us and them” approach in which we are the consultants and they are the consultees.  We do not want to engage in a way that might imply a  power imbalance. We are referring to this phase of the project  as “conversations” which implies that we are part of something rather than separate from it.  The two questions we will be asking are:

What is stopping you from feeling like you belong to Aotearoa?
What needs to change for you to feel like you belong to Aotearoa?
We want to keep these questions as accessible and clear as possible bearing in mind varying degrees of literacy.  What are your thoughts about these two questions that will be used in the conversations across the country?  Please respond to us at [email protected]. with your feedback.

3. Update On Our Activities

October has been a busy month.  Our team of Sandra, Nona and Anjum have met weekly and once the strategy outline was in place and a timeline drafted, all three have been steadily working their way through the list of tasks, and to date, they have kept to the deadlines.

There have been many meetings held with a variety of organisations and individuals, but of note, we have presented a full update on the progress of our project to the board of Foundation North,  met with the leadership of Belong Aotearoa to discuss areas of overlap in our project plan, and in a trip to Christchurch, met with the Christchurch Youth Council and relevant individuals in Christchurch organisations.

We also meet with members of NIDEA (National Institute for Demographic and Economic Analysis) to further our conversations around conducting a literature review of diversity and inclusion consultations in the last five years.  We would like to thank NIDEA for their support in this area, as it will provide some valuable information for our project.

4. Our Current Focus

We are currently focusing on developing the roles and descriptions for our staffing requirements for next year.  Once we have put these job descriptions together, we would greatly appreciate your help in circulating them to your networks.

Our communications strategy is in progress and will continue to be developed, with thanks to Tracey Bridges and Kate Smith.

We are working on and will be continuing to work on building relationships with tangata whenua and seeking guidance on reflecting a genuine Te Tiriti partnership in our work.

We have built a database for our stewardship group and in the coming weeks, we will be reaching out to these individuals.

We are in the process of building the strategy framework database and work plan.

Thank You

We would like to say a big thank you to UNESCO for their funding support.  Their contribution will enable us to take this project another step farther along the journey to building a sense of Belonging for all.

Please check out our funders page for our list of funders and supporters link to page.  You can connect to their webpages by clicking on their logo link.

Anyone wishing to donate to Inclusive Aotearoa Collective, please contact [email protected]