Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Update #26
Talofa lava,
We hope you’ve had a restful break over the Easter holidays. A special time to spend with the family and your wider connections to treasure each other. Whether it is participating in a to’onai with the aiga, hangi with the whanau, sharing feijoas with a neighbour, connections with family, friends, neighbours, your community and new friends or a cup of tea and talk…making the connection is so important for all. It’s a time to remind us to stay still and reflect on just now!
Be you and be inclusive to your connections!
Updates on our website
The IACT team have been busy adding to our website with some new components. We hope you’ve had a chance to take a look, if not head over now!
A Te reo Māori summary of the website and New Zealand Sign Language videos are part of the new components. You can find the videos where ever you see the sign language symbol. There are 6 videos on the website.
Project summary in Te Reo Māori
Introduction to New Zealand Sign Language
We would like to thank George Konia for his work on the translation and Deafradio for their work on the videos.
Upcoming Events
13th April 2021 – Volunteers we are holding a “Tea with Anjum” kōrero!
Volunteers, we wanted to invite you to a “Tea with Anjum” to give you an update on Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono (IACT). This is a chance to hear what’s been happening with the project, get to know some of the new faces in the IACT team and hear our plans going forward. For more information and to sign up to be a volunteer, please click here.
If you have any upcoming events and you would like us to share, please, send them through to [email protected].
Events that we’ve partcipated in:
Earthbeat
It was a wonderful day of sunshine where Aram and Anjum delivered a session at the Earth Beat festival. We talked to participants about inclusion and having coura geous conversations.
We had about 25 people attend and they spent time reflecting on how they could build more inclusion into their lives and their community organisations.
Anti-racism Day
Ara and Anjum attend an anti-racism workshop with a diverse group of people in Auckland. People talked about racism at personal, cultural and institutional levels. Racism causes harm as well as dividing communities from each other. Actions that should be taken by government were listed, in order to feed into work currently being done to reduce racism in Aotearoa New Zealand.
In the News!
The Access Alliance
The first three ‘area of life’ awards categories have attracted many fantastic examples of accessible Education, Built Environment (including Public Transport), and Social Inclusion & Leisure. These providers have been nominated for the 2021 People’s Choice Accessible Business Awards, presented by the Access Alliance and sponsored by Cookie Time Charitable Trust.
IACT has been nominated for the Social Inclusion & Leisure ‘area of life’ category! We thank Access Advisors, who recognised that we work hard to make sure everything we do is as accessible as possible. We always welcome feedback so that we can be better!
People’s Choice Voting: 7 June – 13 June
During the week 7 – 13 June, you can vote for one of the three finalists in each category.
The finalists with the most votes in each of the eight ‘area of life’ categories will become the People’s Choice Accessible Business Award winners.
The 2021 People’s Choice Accessible Business Awards Ceremony will be on at 6:00pm, Tuesday 15 June 2021
More information can be found here.
Rare Disorders NZ
RDNZ Is the connector hub and collective voice of all persons with rare disorders in New Zealand. They are the only umbrella group that represents the 1 in 17 Kiwis living with a rare health condition, and their whanau. Rare illness can lead to barriers, uncertainty and isolation. RDNZ can link up people with the same diagnosis or help them to navigate the health and disability sector.
Their mission is to amplify the collective voice to gain recognition and inclusion for improved healthcare and wellbeing for the rare disorder community. New Zealand lags behind most OECD countries in supporting people living with rare disorders to access vital health and social care. They want to work with the Government to establish a National Rare Disorder Framework to ensure equity for this marginalised group.
Learn more about their work on their website www.raredisorders.org.nz
Congratulations to The Aunties!
“I have a life I can really be proud of today, and I look back and I can’t believe how broken I was.”
That’s one wahine reflecting on her incredible tale of courage, one of the many told in ‘Her Say’. It’s a compilation of stories told by the incredible women helped by ‘The Aunties’, an organisation that helps women rebuild their lives after trauma.
We talked to The Aunties founder Jackie Clarke and some of the women during the belonging conversations run by IACT last year. We’re so proud of what they have achieved in publishing this book.
‘Her Say’ is out now – and all the proceeds go directly to The Aunties to support their incredible mahi.
For the full interview about the book click here.
Our Resources
We have several resources that you can access, so please take the time to review our website.
Mapping Directory
We’ve put together a mapping directory of groups and organisations working in the Belonging and Inclusion space which can be found on our website here (make sure you scroll down the page and select the region). If you would like to be included in this directory it’s not too late. Please send your organisation’s contact details to Talie at [email protected].
Tools for getting started!
We have a number of tools on our website to assist with your journey.