Just a reminder that one of two signature events take place in a couple of weeks. Make sure you are touching your networks and getting anyone you can to come along. With the Prime Minister in the house, we really want to fill it up!
Victoria Triegaardt is an example of globalisation at work: born in South Africa of Polish parents who made there after the Communist takeover in their home country following World War Two, she came to New Zealand in 2000 aged six.
Now 23, with a BA in Politics and International Relations behind here, she works as a policy analyst in the Procurement Section of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Her grandfather was a Rotarian in Lusaka, the capital of what is now Zambia. And this sparked an early interest in Rotary and its work. While still in South Africa, as a young child, she met Nelson Mandela.
She’s managed two exchange scheme visits, the first through Rotary to a small hamlet south of La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast of France, an area noted for its seafood which had a noticeable effect of her culinary tastes.
She particularly grew to like a speciality of the area, mussels cooked under a bed of pine wood which flames up and smokes the mussels underneath.
The second was to Washington DC while a student at Victoria University. Her mother, whom Victoria greatly admires and was widely networked around the world, insisted on arranging a reliable contact for her.
This turned out to be the senior Pentagon correspondent for a major US television network, so Victoria found herself front and centre in the daily political maneuverings of the US capital.
Victoria (Tori but never Vicky) had a number of life shaping experiences while in France, and shared one in particular. She had spent time with another exchange student and that’s student’s family, in Paris among other mishaps losing her wallet (containing her house key), she returned to her village in the early evening to find her host family was out.
With no way to get in, she went to the neighbour’s house where she was warmly welcomed, fed, and looked after until the host family returned, only to discover that her host family and the friendly neighbour had a long running feud and had not spoken to each other for years.
She was able to broker a peace deal based on the host family’s gratitude to the neighbour for their assistance to her.
Victoria is looking at a Master’s degree in conflict resolution as an option for further study.
Thinking about new opportunities to make a difference to those in need in Wellington, Julie Hood investigated a recent entrant to the social enterprise scene in New Zealand, Eat My Lunch.
Eat My Lunch is an on-line lunch delivery service that according to its Co–founder Lisa King aims is to abolish child hunger in New Zealand. Emulating the American company Toms Shoes, which donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair it sells, Eat My Lunch donates one lunch to a Kiwi child in need for every lunch a consumer buys.
Opportunity for Rotary
While not a whole-of-club-on-the-same-day event (they need 5-6 six people Monday to Friday) it is perfect for the time poor who want to do something worthwhile, meet
interesting people and have fun. Individuals can do it as a one-off, occasionally or regularly and you can swap shifts if something comes up.
Because the roster is a rolling three months, and thinking laterally about how we measure member engagement, we could get a different group of 5-6 members to sign up, on a regular basis with the aim to have the majority of members participate before Christmas is upon us.
Food for thought at least.
My experience....
Eat My Lunch is a company of its time it uses social media to promote the for-profit and philanthropic arms of its business, attracts thousands of volunteer hours to make and deliver the more than 300,000 lunches across Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington, and crowd funds to support expansion.
It is a simple four step process to volunteer: 1. Google https://www.eatmylunch.nz/volunteer/
2. Click on Volunteer Wellington
3. Select the days that suit, chose make, or make and deliver, click sign up
4. Register using your email address or your Facebook account
An almost instantaneous email notification confirms your registration and provides the information needed to turn up on the day ready. A second reminder email arrives the day before and there is a contact phone number if you need it.
My experience
I signed up one week and volunteered the next in a specially designed kitchen in a L’affare warehouse in Newtown (the space has been donated by L’affare). We started just after a 7am health and safety briefing, finished 105 lunches by 8 am and I was at home sipping coffee feeling like I had made a difference by 8.45 am having delivered sandwiches, pretzels and fruit to children at Holy Cross and Kahurangi Schools.
The day I volunteered I was welcomed by Jen, an ex-pat Brit who has set up home in Wellington with her husband and young child. Jen is the Operations Manager for Eat My Lunch, Wellington, oversees the volunteers including the new recruits like me, and would be a stand-out candidate to lead a platoon of soldiers on manoeuvres, Ben a thirty-something Asian- Kiwi insurance agent from Auckland, in Wellington to perform in a stage show, and Tamsin a twenty-something kiwi graphic designer from Tauranga, living in Mt Vic with her partner, and who like me is temporarily between revenue streams, making the most of her free time trying out new things.
On Thursday 23rd February, Rotary's 112th birthday, DG Martin Garcia along with 40 others launched a new vehicle for Wellington Free Ambulance (WFA) at their base in Davis St, Wellington.
Port Nicholson club members were well represented as our club has been a major supporter of the Rotary Clubs of Greater Wellington Free Ambulance Trust who provided the medical module including all equipment in the back of the vehicle. In all this cost $65,000 and our recent club auctions and Light and Sirens event in late 2015 were major contributors to meet this cost along with donations from some other clubs and a $10,000 District Grant.
Funding of the vehicle’s chassis was provided by the ANZ Bank and the engineering consultants Beca
All of Port Nicholson can be proud of our collective efforts which has made this possible and there is now a brand new ambulance driving around the region carrying Rotary’s logo for the next 8-10 years.
Club members will recall Diana Crossan, the Chief Executive of WFA, very recently visited our club thanking us for our support and for the Rotary Ambulance Trust which continues to promote and raise funds to assist funding further capital equipment vital to WFA to enable it continue meeting its objective of remaining the only free ambulance service in New Zealand. Our 2017 auction on 19 May is supporting Wellington Free Ambulance along with the Malaghan Institute.
How do the arts respond to conflict and promote peace building opportunities? Vocational Scholar, Stephen Wakem, has recently returned from his Masters in Applied Theatre research at Goldsmiths University of London, and shares some of his experiences.
2016 was a tumultuous year for Europe. With rising levels of migrants attempting to cross borders, the Brexit vote and outbreaks of violence attracting close media attention, people’s attitudes towards ‘the other’ threatened to isolate communities. Below is a short summary of how what I was studying, was seeking to support Rotary’s area of focus concerning conflict prevention/resolution and peace building.
During the autumn, I explored the efficacy of theatre in three contexts: education, community and social change. A day a week was focused on practice, and the other focused on theory. To illustrate, I’ll describe a week during the social change unit. The focus was theatre in prisons.
Andy Watson, Artistic Director of Geese Theatre, facilitated. Andy began by leading warm up exercises he delivers with prisoners or offenders on probation. An example is “Anyone who…” We sat on chairs in a circle. Andy, in the centre, begins: “Anyone who…has a brother…switch places.” If this was true for anyone else, those participants must switch chairs, while Andy would try sitting on an empty chair. A participant left without a chair, would continue “Anyone who…” and the exercise repeats. The exercise develops commonality among participants, and is a safe way to find out new information about a group. It’s playful and generates energy in the room for the facilitator to move on to dramatic simulation work.
Mask is a central metaphor in Geese’s work. Everyone wears 'masks', some as a habitual coping strategy, others more consciously. Andy performed a variety of characters in different environments. Each environment would lead to conflict. For example, ‘Jack’ walks into a pub, notices a group at the pool table, continues to the bar and orders a pint. He sits, then walks over to the pool table, places a coin, and returns to his seat. Time passes. Jack notices the group ignore his coin. They start another game. Jack begins an argument with the group, and consequently resorts to physical violence.
As an audience, we were invited to ask Jack to 'lift his mask' and ask questions about his thoughts and feelings that inform his attitude and behaviour. I saw the distinction between external presenting behaviours and internal experience. This provided for reflective conversations, and a very good starting point for motivating prisoners and/or ex-offenders to make changes in their lives.
The following day, we reflected on the previous day’s workshop, critically re-engaged with the notion of prisons, discussed and debated what society’s role is in integrating ex-offenders back into their communities, and how theatre methodologies might contribute.
I completed a contextual module in each of the autumn and spring terms. During autumn, I studied African Drama. I read many plays by (mostly) Nigerian and Kenyan playwrights, and ‘unpacked’ them together with fellow seminar colleagues. The module provided an historical, social and political understanding for African societies, pre- and post-independence.
Theatre for Development is prevalent in many African countries, a tool used in response to growing and continuing social concerns (e.g. sexual reproductive education, unemployment). The module contextualised theatre’s purpose in these countries and lead to my further research during a visit to Malawi last year.
A class colleague (Lara Chahal) and I applied for and were granted funds to fulfil a cultural exchange project in Malawi over the spring break. We worked with Solomonic Peacocks Theatre, a company that works with disenfranchised groups to promote social change. Lara and I, co-facilitated workshops with Solomonic’s students who developed a piece of theatre-in-education to be performed at local schools. We also lead workshops at Chichiri Prison to promote behavioural change and prevent recidivism.
I began to deeply examine the core theory concepts of the MA programme (play, liminality, narrative, community and power). I wrote a paper which analysed Jim Moriarty's "Marae Theatre" approach responding to young people 'at-risk' in New Zealand. The exercise gave me access into a very specific New Zealand technique, and an approach I intend on returning to with prospective conversations with Mr. Moriarty.
Outside of Goldsmiths, I performed in an intergenerational piece of community theatre with Greenwich Dance Company. Bringing people together in age as young as 7 and as old as 80 was an inspiring venture, and again, a practice which informed the theory I was immersed in, as I continued to explore the possibilities of theatre in building community.
My second contextual module was Disability Theatre, which opened my eyes to the world of disability arts. I completed a project proposal to work with young learning disabled people, a project I am considering the pursuance of with Creative New Zealand's support.
The spring also provided opportunities for voluntary work placements, where I contributed to and observed more of the field in practice. Every Monday evening, I supported Cardboard Citizens in East London. 'Citz' provide exciting arts opportunities for people out of work, not in education or homeless. Citz use Forum Theatre, an interactive technique which enables audiences to intervene in the action by replacing the protagonist and offering an alternative solution to resolve a problem. I’m thinking about how this could be used in New Zealand to promote young people’s sense of agency and empowerment.
The summer term was all about finding a dissertation topic and research. I explored how arts programmes in the UK seek to build community relations between young refugees and host societies. I conducted mostly desk-based research and interviewed two UK practitioners. I also applied this research through the lens of New Zealand’s refugee resettlement programme, and proposed how socially engaged programmes could enhance the migration experience for refugees and New Zealanders.
My interactions with Rotary in London were regular. Rotary were the ‘glue’ in bringing together scholars from all over the world to study some extraordinary programmes. I collaborated with Japanese scholar, Musashi Fujimura, on an arts education project at a refugee shelter in Dunkirk, France; an experiment that brought awareness for the refugee situation back to my London colleagues, and would ultimately motivate my dissertation research.
I look forward to visiting the Rotary Club of Port Nicholson in due course, and sharing more of my experiences. A belated Happy New Year, to all!
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