Kia ora koutou, Greetings, Namaste, Bonjour, Shalom, Hamjambo, Hola, Nihau, Konichiwa & As-Salaam-Alaikum,

This is our final newsletter for the year. We’re taking a wee break and we will back into things in January of 2020, when we will have two new members of the team to introduce to you.  We wish all of you a very happy and safe holiday season and look forward to communicating with you in the new year.

BELONGING AND INCLUSION STRATEGY FOR AOTEAROA

Planning Document
Sandra James has completed the planning document for our activities in the coming year, and it more than delivers.  We are feeling really confident that this document will guide us successfully though the coming year(s) when the IACT team embark on the Road Trip around New Zealand.

This particular document is an internal working document that provides a clearly articulated plan for engagement, communication, messaging, information management, safety/wellbeing, privacy/confidentiality, and risk mitigation.

The plan also provides a timeline, budget plan, key milestones, and a detailed outline of the upcoming road trip.  Thank you to all of you who contributed their ideas and input to the planning document.

Conversations
Next year, the purpose of our road trip is to hold conversations with groups all over the country.  One of the most important ideas behind these conversations is that they are not consultations.  We aren’t consultants, but rather people who want to learn from individuals and communities to gain an understanding of what makes them feel like they belong, what makes them feel like they don’t belong, and what needs to change.

To make sure we are on the right track with our facilitation techniques and content, we held three trial conversations with different community sectors.  The overall feedback from these sessions were positive and provided us with some invaluable feedback about our timing, clarity and explanations  of the project goals.

There were also many useful insights from the participants about their sense of belonging.  Quite a few of the participants really enjoyed the conversations, and if we’d had more time, they could have kept on going!

A big thank you to all the conversationalists who shared their thoughts and ideas,  and a big thank you to those who helped organise participants, food, venues, and data projectors!