Flint & Steel Volume 04 - on cultivating community by Maxim Institute

Blueprint for Living 04 / Home Again 10 / Developing Community in Adolescence 14 A Recipe for Community 20 / Wairua 22 / The House Away from Home 30 / Teaching the Town of the Future 35 / Life on the Outside 40 / The Beginnings of Belonging 44 / A Quiet Legacy 48 9 780986 466281

NZD $11.95 INC GST SUMMER 2018

volume 03 volume - on sustainability 04 - on cultivating and what community we leave behind

CONTENTS Editorial

Blueprint for Living / Joy Reid

Home Again / Michelle Neethling

Developing Community in Adolescence / Dr Myron Friesen and Keren Donaldson

A Recipe for Community / Benjamin Johnson

Wairua / Naomi Haussmann

The House Away from Home / Jeremy Vargo

Teaching the Town of the Future / Olivia Burne

Life on the Outside / Brad Mills

The Beginnings of Belonging / Kirke Sawrey

A Quiet Legacy / Abigail Egden

Editor Jeremy Vargo Sub Editors Joanne Abernethy John Fox Designer Lewis Hurst Photography Fay Carey Naomi Haussman Benjamin Johnson Jono Smit Printer Westprint Publisher Maxim Institute editorial@flintandsteelmag.com flintandsteelmag.com e gratefully acknowledge the W generosity of the following people for the contribution of their time and stories: Don Miskell, Dr Andreas Wesener, the RAS community, Benjamin Johnson and the Free Store whānau, Marama Fox, Carmel Sepuloni, James Shaw, Melissa Lee, Mayor Sam Broughton, Steve Saville, Jackie Freeman, the students and parents of Rolleston College, Kirke Sawrey, Mike Templeton, and Annaliese Johnston. ll rights reserved. No part of this A publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the publishers. opyright © 2017 Maxim Institute C ISSN 2382-1965

axim Institute is a not-for-profit M independent research think tank, based in Auckland.

EDITORIAL Welcome to the fourth volume of Flint & Steel. This annual publication aims to live up to its moniker’s metaphor: we want it to spark thought and creativity. In curating a variety of ideas around a central theme each year, we hope to provide a chance for readers to think deeply about the things that affect all of us.

FLINT & STEEL VOLUME 04 – ON CULTIVATING COMMUNITY Community is easy to talk about, harder to pin down, and harder still to build. In a modern world filled with consumer options and competing life experience we simultaneously long for and resist opening our lives to others. Community has been an intangible but constantly present feature of human life across cultures and time periods, but it requires longevity, localism, sacrifice, kindness, and generosity— habits of heart we are beginning to feel the lack of. In 1995, long before the internet made its way into our pockets, and every part of our lives became shareable, Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone suggested a decline in a culture of membership. Instead of participating and volunteering in structured leagues, people were turning up to bowling lanes when it suited them, eschewing the responsibilities, limits, and potential inconveniences of belonging to a group. The internet and social media has at one level opened new ways of connecting, sharing and being together—bedtime stories over skype, chat and call at our fingertips—but at another level, every relational bond from sex and marriage to politics and neighbourhood is stretched, and made thinner by a terminal shallowness, and lack of real intimacy. What allows some people to be more generous and more connected is starving others of human connection. Loneliness, one of our authors notes, is “one of the most significant challenges facing Western society in the 21st century.” This volume of Flint & Steel aims to look at what community is, and what is in the soil where it grows. What does community offer to us as people? What does it add to a flourishing society, and what are the conditions of place, time, and purpose that community requires in order to grow and survive? Whether it is creating a built environment that encourages us to make new connections, encountering our neighbour by reaching out to another culture, or seeing the face of the neighbours we are tempted to erase or forget, like prisoners, the very young, or the very old, we are all partly responsible for creating the community which will help us thrive. Whether it is through sport, a creative project, or community action, civil society in all its variety offers a thousand points of connection, a thousand ways of drawing the self into a wider and kinder whole. A culture of membership is not, therefore, a matter of nostalgia, wishing to repeal technology or reject the benefits it brings. It is about remembering to hold onto the things which enable real human connectedness to flourish in our time, as it has in others—to bring the same civic values of neighbourliness and membership to a new context. Whatever your context, we hope that the contents of this volume encourage you to lean into the awkward and delightful moments of human connection, helping you add to the projects of community-building in the places you find yourself.

Jeremy Vargo – Editor Editorial |

| Blueprint for Living

BLUEPRINT FOR LIVING BY JOY REID

Very few cities are given the chance to start over. A city generally evolves over the decades, with each generation adding flair and innovation to what their forefathers built. But in Christchurch’s case, February 22, 2011 changed all that.

he 6.3 magnitude earthquake damaged the city so badly there were fears it was beyond repair. Not only were entire suburbs wiped out but around 70% of the buildings within the 400 hectare CBD area known as the Four Avenues were damaged beyond repair. The city was under lockdown for months, becoming a dead zone where the abandoned lunchtime fare from quake day fed a growing population of rodents. Questions were asked whether the city centre should in fact be shifted. Was the land even worth rebuilding on? Would people ever return to where so much heartbreak was felt? Amidst the uncertainty, the Government came out strongly in favour of rebuilding, but not just replacing what was lost. They wanted to create a better city. A year after the deadly quake, they developed what’s known as the Blueprint. It wasn’t just about rebuilding, but also addressing the prequake issues of a dying CBD and a culture of suburbia. The Blueprint needed to re-establish a community within the area the early settlers designated as the city’s central hub more than 150 years ago. “PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE.” Don Miskell says that P word over and over again as he sits in a modern, covered courtyard with sunlight streaming through the glass roof at Arbo—one of the city’s newest central city cafes. The atrium’s centrepiece is a giant white snow tree, a unique and endearing feature—symbolic of the creativity sprouting up around the city. The

lunch rush has left, but there are plenty of people coming and going through the new building. It gives you a sense that normal life is slowly returning to Christchurch. Miskell is chuffed. “When I walk around, I’m pretty happy.” He’s had more involvement in seeing people and business return to the quake-stricken CBD than most. He’s a development planner by trade, and headed up the team of consultants at the Christchurch Central Development Unit (CCDU) which was charged with creating the Blueprint for central Christchurch’s re-emergence from the rubble.

The planners see Christchurch as a city filled with courtyards, lanes, and squares. The people of Christchurch had come up with a wish list via the Christchurch City Council’s “Share an Idea” campaign, which attracted 106,000 submissions. They said their new city needed to be green, distinctive, accessible, compact, prosperous, and a great place to live, work, play, and visit. Miskell’s team had 100 days to put those ideas on paper and come up with a world-class plan to attract investors, developers, and the community back to the space within the iconic Four Avenues.

Joy Reid |

Their solution: a low-rise, compact city, housing key facilities and anchor projects, precincts, and yes... places for people. “It’s all about the people,” he says. “We wanted to encourage spaces where people can work, live, visit, invest, and play—a city where people can be kept busy and active around the clock, effectively a 24 hour city.” Pre-quake, the old Christchurch CBD was struggling. It was a 9 to 5 city, with large chunks of office and retail space laying empty on nights and weekends as people lived, shopped, and socialised in the vast suburban ring around the centre of town. The Blueprint process gave planners the chance to fix that; to start over. They decided to shrink the CBD to a more compact, denser area, corralled between the Avon River and new “green frames.”

In order to meet the needs of residents, the city has to provide economic as well as social opportunities. One can't exist without the other for very long. A smaller city encourages people to interact with each other, with more chances to bump into people, and get to know who’s “in the neighbourhood.” Ideally, Miskell says, any new building will have three uses: people living there, working there, and socialising there. “One of our biggest wishes is to get people to actually live in the city. If you can have people occupying the space for longer than the work day, it adds variety, but also makes it safer.” Before the quakes, only 2-2.5% of the city’s population lived within the Four Avenues, and when the quakes hit almost half of them were displaced. He says the aim is to get 6% of Christchurch residents living in the CBD within 25 years. While that’s still not as high as Wellington or Auckland’s central city, he thinks it’s a realistic goal. Cue the East Frame. This is a radical concept for Christchurch residents who have been accustomed to living in houses along leafy suburban streets. The Blueprint has a designated 5-and-a-half block residential area featuring two long rows of apartment style living, with a 40-50 metre wide park running through the middle. Designed as the new eastern border of the inner city, the long frame is punctuated at its northern end by the popular Margaret Mahy Family Playground. Having people live in the city underpins the local economy, Miskell explains. It automatically creates demand for other services, stimulating businesses like supermarkets, cafes, and restaurants which pop up to meet the needs of those living close by, in turn providing more jobs and opportunities to bring people into the new fabric of Christchurch’s heart.

While very supportive of the compact size and “mixed use” concept, he is nervous about the successful integration of a central residential sector. He can’t stress enough how important it is to have people actually living in the CBD. “If a city doesn’t have a critical mass, it’s only relying on visitors and tourists, which makes it very vulnerable to economic conditions.” He feels the residential redevelopment needs to get a move on. “At the moment there are new corporate buildings, carparking buildings, office and retail space but it’s currently a city that people come to visit but then leave again. That’s not healthy.” THE FIRST medium-density housing development in the inner city since the quake, known as the Atlas Quarter, is expected to be finished by the end of 2017, providing 95 homes. By mid-2019, 200 of the planned 910 homes in the East Frame will have been built. However none have been presold so it’s not known how much appetite there is yet for inner city living. While the homes haven’t hit the market by mid-2017, it’s no secret that they’ll be priced between $400,000 and $1.4 million. Dr Wesener fears that’s too high.

Don Miskell

THIRTY MINUTES out of the city is Dr Andreas Wesener’s office. He teaches urban design at Lincoln University, and has a copy of the Blueprint pinned to his office wall. He refers to it constantly during our interview—he knows it inside out. The Blueprint 6

| Blueprint for Living

“We don’t have an apartment living culture in Christchurch, even before the quakes, so it needs to be more affordable for people than living in the suburbs in order to attract a population base.” In the past 20 years there’s been an international trend of movement from the suburbs towards inner city living. But he’s concerned that the Blueprint’s plan may favour the high-end market, which may thwart that. “A good city contains a mix of people, socially too,” he says.

The CCDU was mandated to make a city attractive enough for people to reinvest; hence the number of government-led “anchor projects,” including a convention centre, a metro sports facility, and a stadium. Those facilities are intended to attract visitors from the suburbs, as well as tourists and business travellers. But do the needs of business clash with the needs of the new inner city residents?

BOTH MEN AGREE, getting people to live within the city will make or break the rebuild’s success. But just as important as attracting residents, is meeting the needs of business. In order to meet the needs of residents, the city has to provide economic as well as social opportunities. One can’t exist without the other for very long. Don Miskell says “The Blueprint design needed to minimise uncertainty and create confidence for developers and investors to reinvest their insurance cheques in the city.” 75% of the $40 billion cost of the city’s rebuild is to be met by insurance money, not as one big cheque, but as thousands of individual payments to home, building, and business owners across the city. “We couldn’t make people reinvest their dollars here but we definitely wanted them to, rather than move their life and business to another city, or overseas.”

Studies show people feel more comfortable when surrounded by things on a human scale. Dr Andreas Wesener says in an ideal world, the two would go hand-in-hand. “These things normally co-exist and organically grow together. That’s how most cities come into existence.” But then most cities don’t start again from scratch. If a mixed-use, people-orientated city is the goal, Dr Wesener questions the decision to rebuild the Convention Centre inside the CBD saying there’s “lots of research to suggest it’s not the best use of land for the central city, as it becomes a large underused space that is counterproductive in terms of activity levels.” He fears it will be

Joy Reid |

one extreme or the other, manically busy for a few days at a time and then “pretty dead,” failing to provide the constant activity needed for a thriving inner city. But Miskell rejects that, saying the Convention Centre will attract high spending tourists into the heart of the city, bolstering the local economy and attracting development. Official figures predict the Convention Centre will bring in $400 million within the first 8 years of operation. THE BLUEPRINT centres heavily around the idea of “precincts.” Don Miskell tells me it’s called “agglomeration.” I have to get him to spell it for me—I’ve never heard of it. He explains it’s essentially putting “like-minded” people together. There are a lot of planned precincts: a health precinct, a justice and emergency precinct, a performing arts precinct, the Avon River precinct, and the retail precinct. That last one makes sense to the shopaholic in me, the rest need explaining. “If Christchurch is going to succeed and have a growing economy, it has to allow people to share ideas, and agglomeration means they can transfer their ideas faster.” It’s about efficiency. The “innovation” precinct is considered the star performer so far. It’s seen a snowball effect, where larger businesses move in, attracting smaller companies, and vice versa. The area is already a hub of creative industry, with a few coffee shops and cafes fitting in to feed the innovative minds. But can the precinct concept create exclusive communities? Miskell points out that agglomeration actually happens a lot where, for example, restaurants and bars cluster together in one spot. He says the precinct model just gives businesses better information on where they might want to rebuild. Dr Wesener is however concerned that by lumping like-minded activity together, the planners are inadvertently creating dead zones during the “off hours” for that type of activity. He cites the 4.2 hectare Justice Precinct as an example—pointing out that outside of office hours, a complex the size of a city block will be largely vacant, save for a few on-duty emergency workers.

| Blueprint for Living

NAPIER IS New Zealand’s only other city to have ‘started over’ following an earthquake—theirs was in 1931 and the city was reborn as the art deco capital. While there’s no architectural design mandate for Christchurch, the planners have spelt it out in a gentleman’s agreement that they see Christchurch as a city filled with courtyards, lanes, and squares. While many assume this choice stems from the laneways of Melbourne, Miskell points to inspiration from Christchurch itself. The Arts Centre, a collection of gothic revival buildings dating back to 1877, is built around quads and courtyards. “It sets a historical precedent” Miskell says, adding that “the courtyard concept is also practical for Christchurch, as it provides comfort and shelter from the city’s prevailing easterly wind.” And it wasn’t just the early settlers. Before the earthquakes the Sol Square development sparked a modern resurgence of city life in courtyards and squares, so much so that the City Council put in place a ‘Laneway Strategy’ before the quakes struck.

Their solution: a low-rise, compact city, housing key facilities and anchor projects, precincts, and yes... places for people. Dr Wesener explains there’s actually a social science behind our preference for this kind of design. Studies show people feel more comfortable when surrounded by things on a human scale. For example, a courtyard space is created by surrounding buildings, which provide passive security for the courtyard from occupants looking into the space from the windows above. When people feel safe, they can relax and enjoy themselves. Don Miskell takes us to his favourite post-quake example known as Stranges Lane. We walk past major construction sites and countless wire fences to find it nestled between niche bars and trendy restaurants. “It’s intimate and not too big,” he gushes. This is exactly the kind of space he foresaw in the plan, and judging by the

comfortable bustle of patrons and pedestrians around us, people are already breathing life into this section of the Blueprint. But it’s not just buildings that Miskell hopes will entice people to find a home back in the CBD, hence the $85 million dollar clean-up of the Avon River which meanders through the central city. “With the Government buying up the East Frame and taking that land out of supply, the centre of gravity of the city moves westward one block, so we jumped the city across the river to make the river a central focus” he says proudly. Professional services, like Deloitte, Price Waterhouse Coopers, EY, and Aurecon are already validating this choice, this year moving thousands of workers into awardwinning architectural masterpieces on the western banks of the revitalised river. By May 2017, all anchor projects except the stadium were underway in some form and the Christchurch City Council has granted nearly 500 building consents for the Central City. But alongside the shiny new offices and construction sites sit empty plots and half demolished buildings, attracting vandals, pigeons, and sometimes squatters. There’s still a long way to go yet, prompting some community criticism that the rebuild is taking too long. In response, Don Miskell pulls out a powerpoint presentation, with research from Harvard University. It shows three important phases for cities following a natural disaster. The Emergency phase, the Restoration phase, and the Reconstruction phase. According

to the research, the length of the Emergency phase dictates the progress of the rest by powers of ten. For Christchurch, a State of Emergency was in place for 10 weeks, which means the Restoration phase (restoring water and power) clocks in at 100 weeks—or two years—and the Reconstruction phase should run to 1000 weeks (20 years). As frustrating as the pace may be, Miskell says that by international standards the city’s rebuild is right on track. ONE OF the more unique anchor projects emerging from the Blueprint is the Margaret Mahy Family Playground. It’s been a far greater success than anyone could have imagined, attracting not just kids, but anyone with a sense of adventure—in fact Miskell proudly shows me a photo of him and his team on the giant slide. Dr Wesener describes the $40 million playground as a radical idea but a hugely successful one. Completed long before the neighbouring East Frame residences, it’s become a big drawcard to the city. On a sunny Monday afternoon, Michelle Ling whizzes down the iconic slide with her 5 and 7 year old boys. She’s a self-confessed “suburban girl” living 10km away, but she makes special play dates at the playground in town. “This is the only reason I come into the city.” And that’s what the planners want to hear—people are making the new parts of Christchurch part of their patterns of living. The built environment the planners imagined is working out on a human scale. •

Joy is the Europe Correspondent for TVNZ and is based with her young family in London. She took up this posting after nearly a decade in TVNZ’s Christchurch newsroom where she was an integral part of the earthquake coverage and stories around the city’s subsequent recovery. Joy is otherwise known as “Mum” to two very effervescent children which keep her very busy, but mostly laughing. She keeps pace with life via her coffee addiction and winds down by finding a bargain.

Joy Reid |

HOME AGAIN BY MICHELLE NEETHLING

Images of bombed-out buildings and broken lives have brought the refugee crisis to our attention. When refugees emerge out of these stories and into our neighbourhoods, are we ready to help them make a new home?

10 | Home Again

s I sat across from Aliah, trying my utmost to paint the perfect butterfly across her sweet, six-year-old face, the ‘refugee crisis’ assumed human form and peered back at me with the cheekiest brown eyes. After scrolling through the top ‘face paint butterflies’ Google Images had to offer, she picked a design that was certainly going to put my two-dollar-shop paints (and whatever artistic flair I possess) to the test. As I painted, Aliah quizzed me on the particulars of the party she had found herself at. “Who exactly is this party for?” “Who was invited?” And more importantly, “Who wasn’t invited?” When I told her that it was a Christmas party for anyone who wanted to come, she was more than a little suspicious, but shrugged it off when she was distracted by the artwork blossoming across her cheeks. Once I had applied the finishing touches, she darted out into the crowd— joining the 120 former refugee mums and kids who were eating, dancing, and having a fantastic time at the Refugees as Survivors (RAS) community centre in Auckland. According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are a staggering 65.3 million forcibly displaced people worldwide—among them, nearly 21.3 million refugees. According to official figures from 2015, just 107,100 of these people had been settled into new countries. Aliah is one of them, and although she and her family are grateful to be safe, their present reality is one of upheaval. How does Aotearoa New Zealand even begin to replace the home they knew, and cherish in memory? Having been torn from friendships, businesses, schools, family, and all the small, everyday familiarities that add up to home—what helps make it possible to start over as a new New Zealander?

In New Zealand our encounters with the ‘refugee crisis’ often take place in the abstract. Earlier in the evening, my friend Jin and I had been chatting to Zeya, a young woman from Myanmar who had very recently arrived in Auckland with one of her younger brothers. The rest of her family—all six of them—hadn’t made it. Unlike some of the other ladies at the Christmas party, Zeya didn’t know anyone except her Red Cross volunteer who had dropped her off. She was very shy, spoke little English, and was clearly uneasy about the prospect of an evening spent with strangers. But as the evening unfolded, and she was embraced by those present, it was extraordinary to watch her relax and allow herself to be welcomed. Being a foreigner myself, I have felt (and continue to feel) the pain of being separated from my family, my friends, and my country.

Comparing my freely chosen immigration to the experience of a refugee would of course be ridiculous, but I do know something of the painful, uncomfortable, and vulnerable experience of creating a new home in a foreign land. Over the last five years, feelings of fracture and displacement have slowly been replaced by a genuine sense of belonging—not as a result of the passing of time, but because of the beautiful people who opened their homes and their hearts to me.

I think about welcoming our new neighbours into this land, and into our lives. How can we continually reduce the space between us? While I am learning to live in the tension of simultaneous grief and joy, I have the luxury of being able to board a plane and head back to my home country if I need to. If my family needs me, I can get to them. If I need them, they can get to me. But, for those arriving in New Zealand as refugees, there is no going back. There is only here. Now. A new street, strange sounds and sights, unfamiliar neighbourhoods and grocery stores, new languages and customs, different ways of learning and being and doing. And then there’s us. We’re here too, and even though we’re part of the unfamiliar landscape, we don’t have to stay that way for long. I’m not sure whether it’s my own experience of being a foreigner, or simply the sheer magnitude of the problem, but when it comes to the refugee crisis, I have felt particularly drawn to ‘do something.’ Eight months before hanging out with Aliah at the RAS Christmas dinner, this desire, with its accompanying question—“What on earth can I do?”—had led to an extraordinary conversation with some close friends. We came to the conclusion that ‘doing something’ was far less daunting if we did it together, and it probably needed to begin with one small, achievable step—a phone call to Red Cross NZ. We wanted to find out how they provide for refugee families arriving in New Zealand, and how we might get involved. As it turned out, they were more than happy to let us know what they were already doing, where they saw the gaps, and how we could help. Our local church was enthusiastic to lend support too, and without further ado, St Paul’s Love Your New Neighbour (SPLYNN) was born, and it has been humbling to watch this fledging ‘something’ take flight. So far, this has looked like teaming up with Red Cross NZ and RAS in Auckland—supporting the amazing work they are already doing in the city, and lending some people-power and ideas where needed. Michelle Neethling |

Red Cross NZ is the primary provider of Refugee Resettlement Services in New Zealand, and every refugee who enters the country spends their first six weeks at the Red Cross Mangere Resettlement Centre in Auckland. RAS on the other hand, is a non-profit, set up to deliver mental health services to former refugees, providing ongoing support to individuals and families as they settle in. While some of our support (as SPLYNN) involves helping resolve some very practical challenges, like the lack of quality household items, it is clear that what our new neighbours need most is the same thing we all so desperately need: community. It feels like the word ‘community’ is fast on its way to the buzzword hall of fame. But regardless of how many of our conversations are littered with it, our need for community sits at the heart of what it means to be a human being. The messy, uncomfortable, wonderful reality of living among people who know us and still love us, is a sometimes difficult but truly good reality. Not only do we need healthy relationships in order to function, we need them to help us to flourish too. Our brains, our bodies, and our souls are wired for connection, and we may never be more in need of human connection than when everything of relational, geographical, and material value has been stripped away from us.

What helps make it possible to start over as a new New Zealander? Recently, our team from work spent some time at a marae up North. Matua Bernard, who had generously welcomed us onto his whānau’s marae and into his home, explained a pōwhiri as a process of “reducing the space” between people. He went on to say that when we first saw each other, we were strangers, but through the process of exchanging greetings, we had begun to establish a relationship. Over the next three days, as we spent time together, the space between us was further reduced. I love this idea, and it is one I keep coming back to as I think about welcoming our new neighbours to this land, and into our lives. How can we continually reduce the space between us? In our conversations with Red Cross and RAS, the resounding challenge they’ve put to us is exactly that: how can we help former refugees not only feel safe, but feel like they belong? This question is an ongoing one—on a personal level, as well as for SPLYNN—but we have begun by getting behind a couple of mentoring and friendship initiatives that we hope will continue to expand and inspire genuine relationships beyond the borders of an organised programme. We hope they will help reduce the space and blur the lines between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Thinking about the ‘refugee crisis’ in conjunction with something as seemingly pedestrian as ‘building relationships and community’ is not easy. In fact, it can be overwhelming and numbing, and not very helpful. I think the problem is that in New Zealand our encounters 12

| Home Again

with the crisis often take place in the abstract—in conversations about the latest news headlines, statistics, politics, and quotas. I think these conversations are critically important as we consider what it means for New Zealand to be a place of asylum, but they can’t stop there.

Our need for community sits at the heart of what it means to be a human being. As we debate New Zealand’s policies regarding quota regulations, let’s also walk down the road and welcome the new family who has just moved in. Our current yearly quota of 750 seems

a painfully dismal number in light of the need, but as we seek to shift this and expand our resources (and our hearts) to accommodate more people, we have the opportunity to embrace our new neighbours. For now, perhaps we can see the smaller number of people settling in New Zealand as a chance to truly engage. With a population of over 4 million, there are more than enough of us to welcome 750 people into our neighbourhoods each year. When Red Cross NZ told us that only between 25 and 40 individuals are settled in our area each year, the overwhelming sense of helplessness I had felt before, dissipated as I thought, “Wow, we can really help!” Yes, on a global scale the need is unimaginable, but for those of us who are here, in New Zealand, wanting to make a difference, we can. And it can be as simple as encountering someone and saying, “Hi, I’m so glad you’re here.” •

Michelle manages the Creative and Development Team at Parenting Place—a non-profit with a heart for whānau. After completing an MA in English literature, she spent a couple of years in the communications team at Laidlaw College, and then joined Parenting Place in 2015. Michelle is a South African who has come to deeply love Aotearoa and its people. She’s married to Nico, addicted to popcorn, and is excited to be learning te reo Māori alongside her colleagues this year.

Michelle Neethling |

14 | Developing Community in Adolescence

DEVELOPING COMMUNITY IN ADOLESCENCE BY DR MYRON FRIESEN AND KEREN DONALDSON

In the adolescent years, young people are drawn to new relationships and community connections that fulfill their needs for exploration and autonomy. The challenge is fostering these new connections with healthy, supportive communities that can promote positive youth development.

t the heart of community is relationship. Human beings, similar to many mammals, have a fundamental need for relationships, both with other individuals and at a wider group or community level. Although people vary greatly in their particular drive to fulfil this need, when we look back through history and across our diverse cultures, our consistent pattern of forming long-term relationships seem to be one of the key ingredients in what makes us human. But what is a community, and what is the difference between a group of people and a community? There are many definitions, but one simple way to describe community is as ‘a group of people who have a shared sense of purpose.’ We could also include the idea that communities last longer than groups. This would mean that groups of people that come together for a very short-term purpose may not be communities. For example, when the New Zealand Government was considering the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, large numbers of people came together to protest this legislation. We would probably not consider the crowds that showed up to protest as a community, even though they had a very clear purpose. However, the organisers of these protests who worked together to inform the public, plan the protests, and gather the people would probably be considered a community due to their shared history,

purpose, and plans to continue working together to challenge legislation that conflicts with their shared values.

“I see you seeing me; I see the me I think you see.” While the phrase, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ may be seen as a bit cliché, the message is clear that a child’s development is promoted by having connections to relationships beyond their immediate family context. This ‘village’ can serve many purposes, both directly for the child and indirectly by providing support for a child’s parents. In the following paragraphs we will explain how adolescence is an important period in life for making those connections with groups and communities beyond the family, and how these larger connections also serve an important function that can either promote healthy, positive development or undermine it. Rather unsurprisingly, research has found that when young people feel connected to family, peers, school, and their neighbourhood they show higher levels of psychological well-being and fewer behavioural Myron Friesen and Keren Donaldson |

problems. When considering the changes that take place during adolescence, these years of transition from childhood to adulthood represent an important opportunity for young people to begin establishing their own place in society. Part of this ‘place-finding’ involves forging new connections with groups of peers and adults beyond the immediate family. We will start by considering some of the changes that young people experience during the adolescent years (don’t worry, we won’t bring up puberty), and the implications these might have for young people’s sensitivity towards group and community connections. First, considerable research in recent decades has shown that the adolescent brain experiences profound change over these years, as specific areas of the brain mature, and connections across different regions are refined and strengthened. From early to mid-adolescence, the limbic system begins to mature. This central part of the brain is involved in hormone control, memory, and emotional and motivational reactions. During this time, young people develop a heightened sense of attraction to reward and excitement, which is further fanned into flames in the presence of peers and any opportunity for social acceptance or increased status. The part of the brain that has the job of supervising this drive for reward and excitement is our prefrontal cortex—located just behind your forehead. Curiously, this section starts maturing a couple of years later than the limbic system, continuing the process into our early to mid-twenties. This developmental gap is like supercharging the engine of your car and then waiting a couple of

16 | Developing Community in Adolescence

years to improve the brakes, suspension, and handling. This helps to explain the dramatic rise in risk-taking behaviour during early and mid-adolescence (both the positive and negative varieties), and young people’s increased anxiety about social exclusion or rejection. While these changes start to take place, the amount of time young people spend with their immediate family gradually reduces and is replaced by more time spent with peers and a variety of adults outside of family (teachers, coaches, employers, etc). The expectations that society has for adolescents are also very different to children, with adolescents expected to show much greater self-

Loneliness has been described as “one of the most significant challenges facing Western society in the 21st century.” control, responsibility, problem-solving, and independent decision making. More than any previous time in their life, they must try to find a balance between maintaining those foundational family relationships and their need for autonomy—their ability to make decisions and take action that is self-determined and consistent with their developing identity. This work of forming identity is a key task for every adolescent, and is achieved not so much by individual navel-gazing, but by exploring the question, ‘Who am I?’, and probably, ‘Why am I?’, within a network of relationships.

Taken together, these combined forces create a strong motivation for young people to become part of a group they identify with, and groups that offer opportunities for novel experiences— especially where there is some element of risk—provide the great reward of social acceptance and status. Within these groups, young people begin to experience themselves through the eyes of others. This has been eloquently described by American psychologist and theologian James Fowler as: “I see you seeing me; I see the me I think you see.” In adolescence, often the most significant people in a person’s life are those whom she is most attuned to, trying to see herself reflected through their gaze and what that perspective might say about who she is. It might be helpful to illustrate some of this with two stories based on our experiences working with and interviewing adolescents. Sarah was brought up in a tight-knit family with stable, nurturing parents who had strong connections to a local community. Her parents encouraged her involvement with the youth group, which she remembers as having a big impact on her views of herself and the world around her. Due to the creativity of the leaders, there were always interesting events running, which she found exciting. The youth group was small and fairly diverse, however, Sarah recalls feeling very connected to both her peers and her leaders. Because Sarah had these significant relationships in her community and youth group, she felt supported throughout her teenage years. She rarely made a significant decision without telling her friends and leaders about it and hearing their perspectives. She also did not feel the

need to follow her school friends down the partying track. Although she snuck out a few times to attend some of these parties, the sense of purpose and connectedness she felt within her youth group had a much stronger pull on her decision making.

One of the most essential features of any youth programme is to foster positive relationships between adults and young people.

Ross experienced a home life that was not much different to Sarah’s. Ross was also raised by committed parents who were involved in their local community, but Ross was never able to get connected, and felt he never fit in. School was especially a challenge for a boy with high energy levels and a disposition towards attentionand sensation-seeking, and he was labelled as disruptive and rebellious by his teachers. He entered his teenage years feeling as if the world had already judged his character, and the only opportunity school provided (he thought) was the chance to make friends with a similar group of boys who also disliked being constantly told, “Sit down and be quiet!” Always looking for a new thrill, sneaking alcohol led to cannabis use, and the consumption of both grew over time. By the age of 16, Ross and his friends were desperate for more thrills and freedom and they began ‘borrowing’ their parents’ cars

Myron Friesen and Keren Donaldson |

and sometimes the cars of people in their neighbourhood. Ross recalls the constant search for ways to “feel alive.” It was always “madness” with his mates, and they loved it. Their failing results at school and the increasing levels of conflict at home only seemed to bind the group of friends closer together, who referred to each other as brothers and their group as ‘the gang.’ A turning point came one weekend when, low on cash and unable to buy alcohol or cannabis, one of the gang jokingly suggested robbing a dairy. Taunts of, “You don’t have the balls!” ensued which served to embolden each person in the group. A plan was quickly hatched and Ross’ pathway from risk taking and behaviour problems to criminal offending was realised.

This developmental gap is like supercharging the engine of your car and then waiting a couple of years to improve the brakes. We’ve observed that in the absence of formal opportunities and encouragement to get connected with a community, young people will create their own communities based on shared experiences, interests, and social status. While Ross’ story certainly does not represent every young man or woman who does not have a strong community connection outside of the home, this story is not that extreme, and many elements closely resemble the backgrounds and experiences of the young men described in Jarrod Gilbert’s book: Patched: The History of Gangs in New Zealand. 18 | Developing Community in Adolescence

Ross had unmet social needs which drew him to a group of boys with similar temperaments and interests, which gave him the sense of connection and social identity that he did not find in school or his parents’ community. In contrast, Sarah’s youth group and community exhibited a powerful influence over how she chose to spend her time. While at one level these appear to be two very different stories, at another level, the process of community connection was the same for both Sarah and Ross. Both young people found a group of peers they could relate to and connect with. Once a part of the group, a shared social identity developed, providing both security and significance and influencing life choices. Community leaders, sports clubs, youth groups, churches, and schools are faced with the challenge of fostering a community for young people that leads to healthy, positive outcomes, as opposed to maladaptive—or, negative—outcomes. Most would agree that maladaptive expressions of community for young people would include gang affiliations, substance abuse, unsupervised risk-taking, and destructive and violent behaviour. So how can community connections that lead to positive, healthy development be encouraged? This issue is being addressed by a growing body of research that focuses on young people’s strengths, the resources available to them in their environment, and their potential for positive development. Recently completed research at the University of Canterbury collated 14 different attributes of youth programmes that help promote positive youth development. One of the most essential features of any of these programmes is to foster

positive relationships between adults and young people. In our representative examples above of Sarah and Ross, that is one of the key differences in each of their experiences of community. A number of adults in Sarah’s life helped her to feel included and valued, and these relationships provided a safe space to explore challenges and difficult decisions. In contrast, Ross felt excluded and judged. What young person would be attracted to a community if that was their experience with the adults? The goal of healthy youth-adult relationships is at the heart of many of New Zealand’s leading youth programmes. One example is 24-7 YouthWork, which has 175 youth workers in 74 schools (mostly secondary) around the country, and focuses on building positive relationships between the adult youth workers and students, while supporting the school’s needs for additional programmes or services. A consistent theme from the evaluation research for 24-7 YouthWork is that the positive youth-adult relationships help students feel more connected with their peers and school, and improves their motivation and behaviour. Another important feature of youth programmes that promote positive community connections is the inclusion of young people in the decision-making and leadership of the programme. When young people are encouraged to not just participate, but also to contribute and assume a leadership role, it serves to affirm their autonomy and competence—further equipping and empowering them for future opportunities. Being ‘promoted’ to leadership can be a powerful experience of being ‘seen,’ providing identity-forming evidence that someone sees your potential, and the unique contribution that you can bring to the community. Every young person needs someone who is able to look past disruptive and attention-seeking behaviour, and see a unique and valuable person, with his or her own unique strengths and talents waiting to be discovered. In a recent study on the spiritual development of youth, we discovered that young people who felt the most connected and committed to their church communities had some kind of leadership role—usually as leaders in a youth group—and community

connection was a stronger predictor of faith than relationship quality and the religiosity of family and friends. One of the paradoxes of the digital age is that it is easy for young people to create community in the absence of relationships—for example, with friends on Facebook or followers on Instagram. There has never been so many ways to connect with people, yet such high numbers of people report feeling isolated and disconnected that loneliness has been described as “one of the most significant challenges facing Western society in the 21st century” by researchers in the UK. When we consider the statistics for health and well-being of New Zealand’s young people compared to other countries, there is considerable cause for concern.

Within these groups, young people begin to experience themselves through the eyes of others. New Zealand’s youth have high rates of mental health problems, suicide, bullying, and substance use. Fortunately, there are also a large number of local and national organisations working diligently to address many of these issues. The challenge remains to effectively translate the evidence from research on adolescent development and programme effectiveness, so our youth organisations can incorporate it into their policy and practice, and further promote healthy youth communities. Over the next several years, the New Zealand government will be investing significant funds into research on adolescent resilience as part of the Better Start: National Science Challenge. With a better understanding of the process by which young people find meaning and identity within strong community connections, researchers, clinicians, youth community leaders, and youth themselves can come together in these projects and address these challenges. We hope this will be the start of a great community. •

Myron is a senior lecturer in the College of Education, Health, and Human Development at the University of Canterbury, lecturing across undergraduate and graduate courses on child and adolescent development and education, and researching social development, positive youth development, and parenting. Myron is also an evaluation research advisor to Te Whakaora Tangata and the Parenting Place. Apart from work, Myron cherishes his time with family and enjoys chasing a little ball around a tennis court, or following a trail through the woods on his mountain bike. Full citations of all research work referenced in this article are available from Myron, email him at myron.friesen@canterbury.ac.nz

Keren Donaldson completed her Masters in child and family psychology in 2016. She worked as an evaluation researcher for a youth organisation for a year, until she decided that desks and computers were destroying her soul. Since then, she has started a small business as a wholefoods chef and is studying holistic health care. The dream to is to work as a practitioner who can address physical, psychological and spiritual issues. In her spare time, she perfects the art of turmeric lattes, writes obscure poetry, and climbs trees. Myron Friesen and Keren Donaldson | 19

A RECIPE FOR COMMUNITY

In 2010, Benjamin Johnson and a group of friends set up The Free Store, a grassroots community in Wellington’s CBD that gathers around surplus food. Seven years on, every day their team redistributes thousands of items of quality surplus food from 75 inner-city eateries to those in need. Anybody can freely take food, no questions asked. With this experience, Benjamin shares some of the ingredients necessary to foster healthy and lasting community.

COMMON VISION We began with an idea of what it might look like to do something good in Wellington. We met together and agreed on the vision of a relational environment that we hoped would be life-giving and sustainable—a space we are proud to invite other people into.

UNRESERVED WELCOME We recognise the humanity of each person who comes through the door, and we acknowledge the whole story that has brought them here. We say, “Wherever you have been, whatever you have been, you are welcome.”

A CULTURE OF LEARNING When we welcome people to become part of this community, their character and our experiences with them will shape us. When our initial, hopeful vision meets the reality of people’s lives, we learn what we didn’t plan for, and the culture of our community adapts and matures through our experiences of the good and the difficult parts of our relationships.

CONSISTENT PRESENCE Instant results don’t tend to last. In an age of transience, we choose to tether ourselves to a particular place and the people who come here, seeking transformation that will endure. If you cannot see yourself deeply rooted in your community in ten years’ time, are you really a part of it now?

HUMILITY None of us have all the answers, solutions, and gifts to see humanity flourish. We each have only a part of the picture, so we must rely on one another. We don’t enter into friendship with the purpose of fixing someone, or because of what we think they have to offer us. 20 | A Recipe for Community

PARTICIPATION We intentionally create space for passive recipients to become active participants. ‘We’ do not go over ‘there’ to help ‘them.’ The majority of our volunteer leaders—those who tirelessly serve and give the most—first arrived at our doors in need.

CELEBRATION We set aside specific times to celebrate the special nature of our everyday life together. These moments provide a chance to retell our story and honour people who have grown and given of themselves to serve the community.

BELIEVING THE BEST We can be quick to judge, especially when we don’t have all the facts, which can lead to toxic community dynamics. We strive to give each other the benefit of the doubt and work to find out what truly happened, rather than leaping to the worst conclusions.

HEALTHY CONFLICT Open communication is incredibly important. We don’t keep secrets, instead, we lean into the tough and potentially awkward conversations, cultivating a culture of honest feedback that allows our community to grow and flourish.

RECONCILIATION Where there has been hurt, whether caused intentionally or unintentionally, we always seek out the path that restores relationships. We don’t discard friends when things get difficult, we invest ourselves deeper in the messy-but-real work of community.

SAFETY IN RELATIONSHIP We cultivate our community as a place of safety for everyone. When people cross a boundary in a way that can’t be worked out in good faith, sometimes we do have to break relationship with them, temporarily or permanently.

NON-VIOLENCE We don’t tolerate violence or cruelty, particularly the especially insidious, subversive behaviours that subtly eat away at peace, whether it be physical violence, aggression, demeaning language, threatening glares, apathy, manipulation, or avoidance.

FRIENDSHIP FIRST We are not a ‘charity’ and we do not have ‘clients’—we are a community of friends caring for one another. A whānau, even. Putting relationship at the heart of all of our efforts to help others reminds us that “people are not problems to be solved, but friends to know.” You can read more about the heartbeat of The Free Store at www.thefreestore.org.nz

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WAIRUA WORDS AND IMAGES BY NAOMI HAUSSMANN

mapping out the rivers that run through you following pathways carved in our bones just to find that i know you you’re made up of water, like me polluted streets, like me this is all land that our bare feet hold to the same land our truths float amongst we are divided only by sight and what we choose not to see not so different not so different not so different you and I Naomi Haussmann | 23

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THE HOUSE AWAY FROM HOME AS TOLD TO JEREMY VARGO

In the lead up to the 2017 election, we talked to four Members of New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 51st Parliament about what it takes to stay connected to the ideals, the people, and the neighbourhoods they were elected to represent. The following is a collection of their responses.

MARAMA FOX MĀORI PARTY CO-LEADER What does it mean for you to represent people as a Member of Parliament? Most politicians will tell you “it’s an honour, and it’s rah rah rah,” but it’s hard work and it is sometimes really unrewarding. To represent people well, you have to be prepared to make the hard calls that other people don’t want to make, so it’s a great responsibility. I’m their servant. I think it’s wrong to call us leaders or hold us in some hierarchy of position because we’re MPs. I don’t agree with that. When you greet someone in a pōwhiri, you share breath through the nose and you share thoughts through the rae (the forehead) and you become one. Once you do that you treat each other as equals.

What does the idea of community mean to you? Hāpuri, community; everybody. There’s no beginning or end to community. We’re neighbours, we are whānau itself and no limit to our relationship with each other that connects us. In Wairarapa, the Ruamahanga River starts in the Tararua Ranges and it flows through the entire valley and all other rivers flow into it. The river flows to all parts and everybody is affected by what happens along that river. Everybody is affected by everything we do in a community—just like the river.

What does it take to create a sense of belonging? It looks like caring; it looks like atawhai and it looks like manaaki. Manaakitanga is a beautiful word. Akiaki means “to uplift.” So, anything you do that lifts someone else’s mana is what manaakitanga

is. And so atawhai describes a caring nature; a heart for something. So, if you put those two things together, manaakitanga and atawhai, those two things together that’s love, that’s arohā. Arohā; it’s “hā” the breath, and “aro” - to cling to; so: clinging to breath. To love is to bring life. That can be quite confronting for people, but that’s why I hug people. When I first came into Parliament I realised after about a year of being here how very freaking lonely it was, and how nobody touched you. People expect that as an MP, you’re supposed be a ‘hands-off’ person and so I get offered these handshakes. So to counter that I just go in for a hug with everybody, even though they might think I’m a bit weird.

What have you put in your office that reminds you of why you’re here? I made this office feel like home because I knew I was going to spend so much time here. I used to try and get home during the day on Saturday and be there through Sunday. Now, if I can get home for six hours on a Sunday I’m winning. I have my rocking chair, the quilt on my couch. That ukulele, this wooden bowl. My pāua and kina shells that I’ve got from home. And my patu, this patu pounamu that I got recently when my mother went to the Māori Women’s Welfare League and said, “I’ll have that, here’s my daughter’s number, she’ll pay for it.” Because I had given hers away. She had given me a patu pounamu which I held during my maiden speech, and I gave it away to John Key when he left. I gave it to him because I wanted him to realise that his biggest legacy was not the flag or whatever, it was bringing the Māori Party to the table of his Government. We’ve been able to change the way this Government works and we’ve changed the way the country looks at itself and we’ve got real gains for Māori. That was his true legacy, but nobody talked about it.

Jeremy Vargo |

CARMEL SEPULONI LABOUR PARTY, MP FOR KELSTON What does it mean for you to represent people as a Member of Parliament? I think you can’t really comprehend what it would be like to actually be a representative in a place like this, until you get here. Initially, when I first arrived it was very overwhelming. It had happened for me quite quickly and so I had very little time to reflect on what that meant; and in fact, being out of Parliament for the three years from 2011 to 2014 gave me a little bit of breathing space and time to think about what it truly means to be a representative. One of the things that I have achieved in my local electorate was working with the local boards and schools to get new footpaths for the area, after many years of them being told that it couldn’t be done. Seems like such a small thing but politics is local—people really appreciate that you care about the small things.

What does it take to really be part of a community? People want to see that you genuinely care and that you show up; that there’s sustained and ongoing demonstrations of commitment to them. And it’s really through your actions that people will then accept you as part of that community, because you need to demonstrate that you really do have a genuine sense of care about the people and about the issues that matter. Having a four-year-old now who goes to a local ECE centre, meeting other parents that are there and actually just being part of the fabric of the community. As a politician you walk into a room and it can be like: “There’s that special person; you know, the politician.” I’d rather just walk into the room and be recognised as one of the local parents. 32 | The House Away From Home

What does community do for you personally? I guess it holds me accountable; whether that be my community of Kelston or my Pacific community. It provides me with that support and that push to go out there and do the work that matters. Yeah, it provides me with a space that feels like home I guess. It’s a comfortable space, but that doesn’t mean that it’s an easy space, because as I said, the people within your community will hold you accountable.

What have you done to try to make Parliament feel like a place where you belong? I will often call little get-togethers or be the person that goes to events and try to broaden the circle quite a lot because otherwise you can end up hanging out with the same people all the time. It’s really important to get across caucus and build relationships—both for me personally but in my role as well. In this place it’s so important that you are supportive of the efforts of others and not just concentrating on your own accomplishments or your own personal ambition. I guess that’s how you build relationships. Seeing the best in people and letting them know when they’ve done a good job.

If you could go back to just before you first came to Parliament and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be? “Just sit back Carmel, and watch and listen for a bit,” because it’s really important that you respect the people that have been here for a while. Take note of the personalities that are around you and get to know the place. It’s really important that you take the time to do that and I don’t know if I did that as well the first time I came in.

JAMES SHAW GREEN PARTY CO-LEADER What does it mean for you to represent people as a Member of Parliament? We sign an oath of allegiance to the country when we’re sworn in. I mean we’re backed by our supporters and we have to answer to our supporters and we have to stay true to the philosophy that they stand for, but our first allegiance legally is to the country at large. You get a piece of legislation and you don’t necessarily sit there and go “How’s this going to look to my constituents?” You think, what’s the effect of this going to be on the country or on the people that this is designed to affect?

What does the idea of community mean to you? I think people join communities that they have an affinity for through at least one of the lenses for their own kind of sense of personal identity. And so, for some people that’s a function of their sexuality, for some people it’s function of their geography, especially Wellingtonians. I think the extent to which you take a dimension of your identity and centre around that probably predetermines which communities you end up belonging to. But, for any community to function properly you need to be able to give up the more extreme aspects of your own individuality; so, you’ve got to be able to place the group ahead of the individual sometimes at least. And if you can’t, then I think by definition it probably falls to bits. Political parties are all like that.

What does it mean to be part of a community? A critical ingredient in belonging to any group is for the people who are part of that community to acknowledge that you belong with them, acknowledging you for who you are, and what you think is important. It’s powerful to be validated by a group and have people who can imbue you with a sense of your own identity as a result of that. I think that a function of being a public figure is that actually there’s quite a lot of people who know me—even if I don’t know them—and will identify with me and what I’m doing. It shows up in places like my Twitter feed in comments and feedback. Many of them are people in business who are really concerned about the state of the environment and really want their organisations to be restorative rather than exploitative; both environmentally and socially.

Parliament is full of people who are politically opposed to each other, are there ways you can connect with MPs outside of your party? I really value things like the press gallery Christmas party. The moments where we mix and mingle that are kind of off the clock. It’s funny, sharing a cab in from the airport, running into each other at the Koru Lounge; you get conversations that advance things that you don’t have when you’re in the building. I don’t think we do nearly enough of that kind of stuff. On Budget night this year, a group of MPs and journalists ended up at 3.2 [the Parliament bar on the third floor of the Beehive] in the evening and it was one of those, “okay we’re all off the clock now” situations. People provided feedback for each other, across political boundaries. But there are not very many of those opportunities, because you’ve got to have people who are game for it. It’s funny, because of course there used to be the billiards room back when Parliament really was a boy’s club. Now that’s an historical relic, it’s hardly ever used for anything because we’re all back in our offices beavering away.

Jeremy Vargo | 33

MELISSA LEE NATIONAL PARTY MP

that lady over there.” It is a real, real privilege that I can provide a conduit for them to see that New Zealand is not so alien after all. That whatever they’re facing is actually just a moment in time maybe; whether it’s racism, ageism, or sexism.

What does it mean for you to represent people as a Member of Parliament?

What have you put in your office that reminds you of why you’re here?

Absolute privilege. It’s an honour. There’s only 120 Members of Parliament who get to come to Wellington and make legislation, change legislation, represent the people in their community; whether that’s boundary related in terms of an electorate or whether it’s ethnic. It doesn’t really matter whether people actually agree with me or not, whether their politics are the same as me or not, I am here as an MP and I will work just as hard for people who vote Labour as those who vote National.

Everything. Look at the two flags (New Zealand and South Korean flags), together a New Zealand and Korea passion. The photo of my boy—he’s half Korean, half Kiwi. I’ve got paintings by local Korean artists of the New Zealand bush and Mt Cook over there. I run an art competition once a year for local Korean amateur artists and I give them a theme. The first prize winner always comes to my office in Wellington and the second prize is hung in my Auckland office.

You’re a List MP, but as a Korean New Zealander, you are a member of a minority ethnic community. What is it like to be a voice in Parliament for that kind of non-geographic community?

I’ve always been a working mum. I was divorced when my son was three and I raised my son on my own. I’m absolutely blessed to have my Mum with me, otherwise I couldn’t have done what I’ve done—having family that is supportive is essential. The one time that I did really stress was when my son was tackled really badly during a rugby game and ended up with a concussion, and I couldn’t leave Wellington to get to Auckland to see him. That really broke my heart. It’s really important that MPs actually take time out from this place. I have some time at the end of each year when I try to be unreachable. Through the year I’m really not available for my family but at the end of the year I’m available for them 24/7. I do the normal things: do the laundry, do the lawns, do the gardens, get my hands dirty, go to the beach and sort of fall over. Those normal things that people do. •

It’s one thing I take very seriously. I’m a List MP based in Mt Albert, and I do work within the electorate as a List MP because I’m a representative of this Government. Having said that, because I’m an “ethnic” MP—someone who was born overseas, who speaks multiple languages, and who looks different to what most people see New Zealand as, I think people see me as a bit of a role model, particularly for their children. So, I get requests to speak at schools to talk to children about what it’s like for them and for me. It inspires me when I see the look on children’s faces when they finally connect and say, “Actually I don’t need to have a chip on my shoulder, I’m not that different from 34 | The House Away From Home

How do you balance the demands of life as an MP with staying connected to the people who rely on you?

TEACHING THE TOWN OF THE FUTURE BY OLIVIA BURNE

As a growing town welcomes its first high school, meet the people who have imagined the environment and values that will shape the young people of this community for decades to come.

Olivia Burne | 35

here’s something about the Canterbury Plains. Long, straight country roads crisscross the flat farmland, giving motorists and farmers an unhindered view of either the majestic snowcovered Southern Alps to the West or the Port Hills in the South. There are sheep and cattle farms on either side of the road—it’s easy to see why Selwyn District is synonymous with farming life. For years Rolleston was one of the small farming towns dotted around Selwyn, primarily scoffed at by the residents of nearby Christchurch for its naïvely optimistic town sign: “Welcome to Rolleston: Town of the Future.” Jackie Freeman and her husband arrived in 1998, when the town’s population was less than 2000 people. The couple moved from Christchurch because of the same concerns that plague many city dwellers now: house prices. The Freemans built a brand-new house in Rolleston for the same price as buying an old one in the city, plus there was the added benefit of small-town living. “But back then it was really small, with no amenities aside from the local dairy and a very old petrol station. They’d only just built the community centre,” she recalls. In an age of rapid urbanisation and rapid pace, the sense of knowing your neighbour can almost seem antiquated. Not so in old Rolleston—the town was small enough for families to grow up together, even if the children were only schooled locally until the end of primary school. Upon entering their teen years, kids were bussed out of town to attend Lincoln or Darfield High School. Jackie is a gatherer, the kind of person who likes to pour out her heart and soul into the people around her, and Rolleston was no exception. She got involved with the local tennis and netball clubs

36 | Teaching the Town of the Future

and, before long, joined the Rolleston Residents Association. She was the seventh teacher hired at Rolleston Primary School, which trebled in size during the three years she taught at the school, and she used this experience in education to serve a number of years as chair of the local Burnham School Board.

“You're never going to know everyone, but providing spaces where everyone can know someone well, that's important.” Before long, Jackie became known among sports clubs and town governance as a mover and shaker in the community. She was known for her persistent voice, lobbying for change and improvement for the families in Rolleston—the town she had come to love. IMPROVEMENT BECAME more and more necessary as the years rolled by and new families started moving in. Particularly after the Christchurch earthquakes, Rolleston became a prime location on these plains. A mere 25 minute drive from central Christchurch, offering reassuringly stable shingle soil, and cheaper land prices, it didn’t take long for property developers to start fencing off sections and buying up land. By June 2016, the town had quadrupled in size: 13,000 residents and growing. The future had finally arrived. Within ten years, the face of Rolleston had changed from a quiet farming town to a bustling hub for young families, a transformation that finds an almost uncanny representation in new mayor, Sam

Broughton. One of the youngest mayors in New Zealand, the energetic 35-year-old grew up on a sheep farm between Darfield and Colgate, a 20 minute drive from his Selwyn District office in the heart of Rolleston. Sam and his wife Liz welcomed their first child at the beginning of this year, and he’s got a sense of the tensions and opportunities ahead for the growing population. “It’s easy to live a life that’s focused on yourself and your family. You’re never going to know everyone, but providing spaces where everyone can know someone well, that’s important.” IN ORDER for communities to flourish, there needs to be common places of connection. Over a decade of watching the town’s rapid expansion, Jackie began asking herself how her town could retain a sense of connectedness and common identity, especially as her three kids started growing up through the local primary schools. While Rolleston was attracting new commercial amenities like supermarkets and fast food outlets, she knew that unless someone started lobbying for a high school in town, her kids would have to spend the majority of the week away from their

community and she would lose touch with other parents as their teenagers dispersed. “Rolleston has been a little bit soulless,” says Sam. “It’s been a place where people live, but travel away for work. Children have grown up here, but haven’t been able to stay for high school.Schools provide a place for all families to connect and grow together. When it stops at the intermediate level, there’s no longevity of relationships.” In 2014, after years of lobbying the District Council and the Ministry of Education, Jackie got her wish: the Ministry recognised the need and announced that Rolleston College, a Public-Private Partnership high school would open in early 2017. The community was given the task of selecting an Establishment Board of Trustees (eBOT). Of course, one of the first people appointed to the six-person board was Jackie: “They knew I had some pretty strong opinions about what needed to get done and I wanted it done right,” she says with a laugh. The new eBOT were given a 500-page document from the community that outlined key needs and wants for the teenagers Olivia Burne | 37

of Rolleston. The list included easy access to the outdoors for the sporting-mad students, good teachers, and openness to the community, a place where parents and guests feel welcome. Also on the agenda—and of particular interest for this predominantly New Zealand European town—was the conscious decision to weave te ao Māori (the Māori world) into the design and practices of the new school. While engagement with Māori culture has not historically been a large part of mainstream schooling in Canterbury, the school has worked with the local Māori council, Te Taumutu Rūnanga to include the values of mana whenua (the people of the land) into the fabric of how future Rolleston students will learn and interact with their people and their place.

“Rolleston College is a community space, not just a high school. That's how I see it, there's no fences or gates.” The Board came up with a group of six values that they wanted to shape school culture, qualities that they hope future generations of Rollestonians will draw from their time at the school: Joyful, Resilient, Manaakitanga (Hospitality), Creative, Kaitiakitanga

38 | Teaching the Town of the Future

(Guardianship) and Connected. The rūnanga gifted Rolleston College with a Māori name: Horeaka Haemata – the flourishing lancewood. In its infancy, the stiff and spiky leaves of the native tree grow downwards then lift towards the sky as the tree grows into adulthood, a metaphor for how the community hopes their young people will mature and flourish through their experiences here. The eBOT also wanted to ensure the school’s first principal would be a suitable fit for the community—a leader who was innovative in a way that could reflect the energised new community. Jackie recalls how, during the interview process, the pool of potential candidates grew smaller and smaller until the only candidates remaining were those who had never been a head principal before. They found their answer in Steve Saville, former Deputy Principal at Alfriston College, a high school in the south of Auckland. SAVILLE CARRIES a contagious energy. He sports a pierced ear, teaches comic art in the classroom, and bounds around the campus, greeting students and parents by name. He saw Rolleston College as a new opportunity for an evolving place. “Rolleston felt like a very energised positive community,” he recalls. “It was initially quite dislocating; the town was growing so fast. The College has become a very, very important community focus—[the opening] is another rite of passage for this community as it grows.”

It’s evident from the school’s design that Rolleston College is intended to reflect a new style of learning and socialising. The classrooms, like many new schools around the country, are all openplan with break-out rooms for quieter work. Visitors are welcomed through a whare at the school’s entrance into a large, high-ceilinged foyer. Students can be seen bustling along the open-air bridge that connects the two arms of the building. Each flexible learning space is named with big, bold letters on the wall in both English and Māori, with the expectation that students will learn parts of te reo by association. 90 percent of students have a smartphone and are encouraged to carry it with them to scan QR codes dotted next to certain exhibits for further information, as well as to document work projects and upload images to their online ePortfolios. The expansive courtyard between the arms of the building was designed to evoke a street-café, encouraging the students to spend time outside with each other. Principal Steve and the Board were keenly aware of the challenge of starting an institution from scratch in a new community. Rather than opening the doors to students at every year level, the decision was made to open for the first year with just Year 9 students, to allow a smaller group to help define the kind of place Rolleston College would be. For the first three weeks of the first school term, there was no traditional subject learning. Instead, the teachers worked with the students to create a college haka, and together, they developed the school’s new cultural values and practices.

“Welcome to Rolleston: Town of the Future” At the start of the now normal school day, students are encouraged to pursue their own areas of curiosity and interest during the 100-minute “ako” learning time, named for the Māori concept of reciprocal learning between mentor and student. There are also longer periods each day of “Connection Learning”—covering traditional subjects like English, Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences, Health, Physical Education—and “Selected Learning,” during which students work on two subjects they can choose to pursue for a term, like Spanish or Art. The responsibility for learning is placed in the hands of the students who are encouraged to enjoy their education, while teachers ensure they are still on track towards their NCEA qualifications.

WHILE A high school cannot be expected to bring all people together—there are local families who will not send their teenagers to Rolleston College—the openness of the school grounds, its emphasis on local cultural narratives and its staff ethos are all oriented toward connecting the students with the life of their town. Open Days held before the school’s opening were intentionally aimed at those without teenage children, in order to allow the whole community to see and understand the vision of the College. Thousands of people streamed through the whare to take a look at “their” school.

“The College has become a very, very important community focus—[the opening] is another rite of passage for this community as it grows.” Jackie hopes that over time, the local community will benefit from strong ties with the school. And there is evidence that this is already happening. Evelyn Taylor moved here from Auckland with her young family just after the earthquakes and watched the town evolve from a small community to a transient township. “In the space of four years, we lost our identity. We don’t know the people and we’ve lost our character. School and sports clubs, that’s how we meet people now,” said Evelyn, whose daughter Emily started Year 9 at Rolleston College this year. “But Rolleston College is a community space, not just a high school. That’s how I see it, there’s no fences or gates.” The question remains, how will these intentional decisions by the Establishment Board and its energetic Principal shape the character of this town as its students move on to life beyond College? Will the community embrace the College’s new methods and values? Evelyn’s friend has decided to send her teenage daughter to the more traditional Lincoln High School by bus each day, not wanting to take a chance on all of this change. As for Jackie, she’s quietly satisfied with the progress so far. Her eldest daughter is older than Year 9 so missed out on the inaugural intake, so she will be stepping down from the Board of Trustees in 2017 to ensure parents of current students are the ones taking responsibility for the school’s direction. But that doesn’t stop her own sense of connection to Rolleston College. “This is a dream come true,” she said, her eyes welling up as she stands in the school’s library and gazes out the glass walls to the Southern Alps. “Every time I drive past the school for the rest of my life, I’m going to feel incredibly proud.” •

Olivia works in communications and marketing for Venn Foundation, a not-for-profit that provides teaching and development for people interested in learning more about the gospel in New Zealand. She spent four years studying journalism in the United States, and three years working in sport media. When she’s not exploring the world of faith and philosophy, Olivia can be found exploring running trails across Auckland.

Olivia Burne | 39

LIFE ON THE OUTSIDE BY BRAD MILLS

What is man? Hope turned to dust. No. What is man? Dust turned to hope. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Elie Wiesel

40 | Life on the Outside

e take pride in being a cohesive and safe country, with a strong co-operative culture. But New Zealand’s current record high rates of incarceration and reoffending show we are failing in our societal duty to rehabilitate offenders and protect victims. In March 2017, the number of inmates in New Zealand prisons had tipped over 10,000, the seventh highest rate of incarceration in the OECD. In the early 1980s in New Zealand there were 83 inmates per 100 thousand people—today there are roughly 212. For Annaliese Johnston, a social policy analyst with the Salvation Army, these figures tell a story. “What I find quite striking in all this is that crime overall has actually dropped in New Zealand in the last few decades, which is consistent with trends in other Western nations. Yet our prison muster is higher than ever and we are struggling to make significant headway on reducing reoffending, which suggests that we struggle to rehabilitate people well in our prisons.” It’s possible that ‘leaving behind’ those who are in prison will not cause many to lose sleep. After all, it can be argued that we are discussing people who have at some stage made a cognitive choice

to break the law—stealing property, injuring others—leaving a trail of brokenness. But each broken life in prison has its own story, often one of repeated societal failure. Each offender has their own history with family, friends, education, work, and society, and when they’re released from prison, they will have to make decisions about where they live, who they interact with, and how they support themselves. To do rehabilitation properly is not only good for the offender, it prevents the disaster of the ‘revolving prison door:’ offenders unchallenged by their actions—and denied help and healing—too often create more victims, making us all more unsafe, our society blunter, less responsive, less decent. “Over the last decade, post-prison reoffending rates have changed very little. For example, in 2006, 56.4% of ex-prisoners had reoffended within two years of being released, and in 2015 this figure was 57%,” says Johnston. This cycle of offending, conviction, imprisonment, release, and rapid return to prison doesn’t make us safer in the long term. And, at the same time, we are locking up more people. We must find a better way.

Brad Mills | 41

Mike Templeton knows how hard it is to break this cycle. A former prisoner, Mike spent 10 years of his life in and out of prison in the 1980s and early 2000s for various crimes stemming from drug addiction. For the last decade, however, his life has had a different focus, as a counsellor and soon to be ordained Anglican Deacon who works with church and community organisations, helping prisoners work out their own journey of rehabilitation. As someone who lived the pattern of reoffending and reimprisonment multiple times, Mike says that his story changed when he was paroled to Victory Outreach Recovery Home, a faithbased halfway house in Auckland. Rather than simply walking out of the prison gate and back into the same world, the halfway house gave him time and space to focus on identity formation, strengthen ties with his family, and take part in education and employment programmes. Over several months, Mike established new connections to community and public life, making a new life both possible and plausible. So, what’s being done to make sure that more of our prisoners have post-prison stories like Mike? In 2016, the Department of Corrections spent $176 million on rehabilitation and reintegration services, and there are some fantastic success stories. Within prisons, Corrections have developed a variety of programmes, including Drug Treatment Units (DTUs) which have been credited as the Department’s most successful therapeutic programmes. These are run collaboratively with NGOs, with “a residential 3–6 month long programme that aims to rehabilitate prisoners with substance abuse problems through group-based treatment, teaching inmates about addiction, change, relapse, and the effect their actions have on others”. Annaliese Johnston says that a “2006 evaluation of the 24-week programme revealed that DTUs reduced the reconviction rate by 15% for male offenders and by 30% for female offenders.” Given that a huge proportion of prisoners struggle with addictions and substance abuse (some studies suggest up to 89%) these are essential if prisoners are to successfully rehabilitate, reintegrate into the community and pursue employment opportunities. Johnston adds, “While DTUs work, participants in our research said it can be hard to get a place in the programmes, especially for prisoners with shorter sentences. It would be great if there was more funding to allow wider participation in this kind of rehabilitation effort.” There are also exciting new public/private inititatives that have been set up in the space between the prison gate and full release, aimed at helping prisoners successfully manage the transition from prison to a new life. Whare Oranga Ake is a collection of kaupapa Māori rehabilitation units for training and repatriating prisoners to life outside, set up by Hon Sir Pita Sharples in 2011 on the grounds of Hawkes Bay prison and later at Springhill prison. This programme specifically involves whānau and the community, helping to prepare them to receive and support offenders at the end of their sentence. They are unique, in that they recognise Māori philosophies, and the strength of Māori communities—particularly 42 | Life on the Outside

important given that Māori make up 15% of the general population, but 56% of the prison population. Mike points to Whare Oranga Ake as a leading light in pioneering the kind of approach that worked for him at Victory. He laments that, at present, Whare Oranga Ake only has funding to provide 40 beds over two sites nationwide, a drop in the ocean compared to the need.

“If you have somewhere to lay your head, cook your own meals, and space to call your own, that is huge. You start to feel human again.” Other official support for ex-prisoners includes the Out of Gate service, connecting short term prisoners—those who are inside for 2 years or less—with NGOs who focus on addressing employment, accommodation, education, and training, living skills, health, and wellbeing. Unfortunately, Johnston’s research found that the Out of Gate service only reaches a certain number of ex-prisoners, for quite a short amount of time. Some former prisoners she interviewed reported that on release from prison, they were dropped off at the bus-stop with nowhere to go. Many also talked about very simple things that would help, such as having an accepted ID before they left prison, something that is essential for participating in society—required to open a bank account, to get on the benefit, and apply for housing.

Former prisoners, just like the rest of us, are hardwired for connection and belonging, and if programmes like Whare Oranaga Ake, community groups, and other organisations can facilitate those relationships, then the people most in need of help will be less likely to turn to other self-destructive habits. Mike says that halfway houses fill an important gap, giving former prisoners a place to stay and opportunity to establish pro-social behaviours that will assist them in proving they’re ready to rent a house and find a job.

To do rehabilitation properly is not only good for the offender, it prevents the disaster that is the ‘revolving prison door.’

Reintegration, however, doesn’t just come down to having the right practical supports. A 2014 Colmar Brunton survey for the Ministry of Justice found that while 67 percent of New Zealanders believe that prisons keep the public safe by containing offenders, just 8 percent think that prison deters offenders from re-offending. The crucial challenge of reintegration is rebuilding public trust, says Johnston. “The reality is that there will be many who would not want the risk of having someone with a criminal record as their tenant or employee, and understandably so. I do think however that there are many New Zealanders out there who believe in the ‘fair go,’ and want to give people that second chance. Some of the guys I interviewed in my research talked about what a huge deal it was when they met an employer who was willing to do that, and it made them want to work even harder and better for them. Many of them are desperate to make a better life for their families.” “And we have stakes in this,” she continues. “If we want safer communities, and less reoffending, effective reintegration needs to happen, as most prisoners will not spend the rest of their life in prison.”

Annaliese Johnston supports this intermediary step, saying, “A good model of housing that was mentioned by some of the guys I interviewed is the ‘flats’ that The Salvation Army rents or owns, with a reintegration team close by. One guy talked about the effect of having his own space, saying: ‘Your head is so messed up when you come out, you need that space to adjust and get back on your feet. Time to stop hearing the keys and doors clang every time you wake up. If you have somewhere to lay your head, cook your own meals, and space to call your own, that is huge. You start to feel human again. Like you could be a good member of society.’” As a small nation with a big problem in recidivism, there is hope for change, but it starts with people meeting, talking to, listening and helping those who need a second chance—combining compassion with prudence, care for victims, and bracing realism. Maybe Mike is more prepared for that job than most, but at present there’s certainly not enough Mikes to go around. Annaliese Johnston says that while crime has been part of the human experience throughout history, overcoming its effects requires a human response from each of us. “When you hear the stories of many of those who have ended up in the criminal justice system you realise how many of them were victims to horrendous abuse and circumstances themselves. It does not mean that we excuse criminal offending, deny justice, or ignore the risks of reoffending—those all have to be weighed up. Ultimately though, I think that the greatest hope we can offer someone is forgiveness and the opportunity for redemption in the face of their mistakes. That’s a story common to us all.” •

Brad studied as a journalist and now works as a project manager. He spent six years at Rhema Media in their news, radio, and TV departments and has been a contributing author for magazines and online publications. Brad recently started a podcast with some friends called The Round, and when he’s not writing, or finishing some home renovations, he loves to travel and surf.

Brad Mills | 43

THE BEGINNINGS OF BELONGING BY KIRKE SAWREY

Only connect! … Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. – EM Forster, Howard’s End

elonging is a basic human need—as humans we are relational beings that require interaction. Through the experience of many different interactions our sense of belonging is formed: to be held in a mother's arms for the first time as she settles you to sleep, or to be invited for the first time to a birthday party. Weaving memories of family time in the flow of certain rivers, or creating nests, home places, in the shade of certain mountains. We are created from relational bonds and, in turn, we are created to establish relational bonds of our own. The highs and the lows of these relationships with people and place inevitably shape us, mold us, wound us, and heal us over time. Currently, I am completing my tertiary studies at Victoria University, and, as I think it is for most of my class, I feel an expectation from our society to grow toward independence. In this modern understanding of life, it seems to me that success looks like graduating from university, working hard as an individual to capture an esteemed office job in order to provide stability for an assumed nuclear family. Outside of work, we’re free to retire to the lounge suite for several hours of TV and plan the occasional overseas trip. This vision of being doesn’t invoke life within me. The stories of my upbringing led me to ask: where is relationship in that picture? Where in this life am I open to the kinds of diverse and ongoing relationships that will help me belong to a wider community? How will I be molded, broken, and healed?

44 | The Beginnings of Belonging

I am fortunate to have already been shaped by a wide whānau and many places. My life is marked by culture, by gender, by social class. I am Pākehā. I am male. I have been born into privilege. These are markers that can easily be seen on the outside. However, like a tree, if you peel back the bark, there is a lot more that allows me to stand where I am today. Te Upoko o te Ika (Wellington) is my home. I was born in Petone, and spent most of my primary school years in Paekākāriki—another word for paradise. For a time, I lived in Suva, Fiji with my family before returning to Kāpiti during my high school years. These times and experiences have created relational bonds—a tapestry of interwoven relationships and experiences that has taught me reliance over independence. As with many of the most valuable things I have learned, I have witnessed this through the example of my parents. My mother grew up in Muritai (Eastbourne). At the age of five, she asked her parents where all the Māori people were, if this was their land? So her dad took her to Ngāti Pōneke kapa haka group, at one of Wellington’s urban marae. Mum was fascinated and began to attend regularly, she and her brother taking an hour-long bus trip back and forth each week for rehearsals. It being the 1960s, they were the only Pākehā in the rōpū (group). Her Eastbourne upbringing and my grandparents taught Mum many things, but she says it was the kuia and koroua, the old folk, at Pipitia Marae that taught her the most about what deep connection and belonging can look like.

Kirke Sawrey | 45

Kirke (second from left) and family in Suva

Ucunivanua

A big warm embrace of welcome and a plate of hot food that came unconditionally no matter your size, age, or colour. Dad grew up in Woburn, the other affluent suburb of Te Awakairangi (Hutt City). However, he inherited a similar understanding of belonging during his time living in Ucunivanua, a village on the eastern coast of Viti Levu, Fiji. There he was immersed in a society that was based on reciprocity, focused not on the individual, but on the collective—valuing relationship over possession. When I was eleven, I experienced a similar community, when our family moved to Suva, Fiji for a couple of years, as my parents taught at a theological college there. In this place, life was lived in community. At my new school, we shared lunch everyday, and every evening we played touch rugby with the Pan-Pacific neighbourhood. Arriving back in Aotearoa to start Year 9 at Kāpiti College was a shock to the system. It seemed to me that my classmates were so concerned about their image and social standing that some wouldn’t eat their own lunch for fear of not having ‘cool enough’ food. In contrast to the communal lunchtimes I was used to, the only time food was shared was when an apple came flying from Year 13 students across the field, as a form of social induction.

Despite this rough introduction back into a society dominated by individual competition, I think my time at Kāpiti College taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have learned. In order to belong to a place or people, you must be there long enough. Prior to attending Kāpiti College I had moved around a lot. This was the first school I remained at for more than 4 years, and it was at the school marae that I began to realise the value that longevity brings. I learnt to prioritise manaakitanga (hospitality, care for others) when the teacher would interrupt teaching to allow our class to properly host groups of visitors—thoughts of individual performance in an upcoming assessment were put on hold in order for us to make our visitors feel welcome and valued. I saw the power of kōtahitanga (unity, solidarity) in our kapa haka group giving up lunch times and weekends so that everyone would be practiced and ready for kapa haka competitions. In these practices, when one person made a mistake we all went down for pushups, and when one of us succeeded we all celebrated. And if one of us forgot our lunch, there was plenty to go around, without the need for thrown apples.

46 | The Beginnings of Belonging

There is a sense of unity that is created when you host together, when you struggle together, and when you succeed together. While others may have found a similar experience of collective bond in their rugby teams, choirs, or clubs, I felt the life shaped by manaakitanga and kōtahitanga at Kāpiti marae offered me something more, something deeper. It made sense to a boy who’d just come from community life in Fiji, and I made a commitment to stick with this group of people. This was an unusual commitment for a Pākehā boy in a predominantly Pākehā school. I found myself being questioned and teased by my Pākehā friends for interacting and hanging out with “the Māoris.” And to be fair, my mates at kapa haka and in Māori classes didn’t quite understand why this Pākehā boy was involved so heavily at the marae either. It didn’t matter. Despite my external difference, Kia Āio te Noho (our kapa haka group) was a place of real belonging for me, offering support in the often hostile environment of high school, and shaping my identity as I joined with the rest of the rōpū in helping others when they were in need. Towards the end of high school there was a moment that confirmed for me the enduring value of this kōtahitanga, the power of belonging. I was a pallbearer at my grandfather’s funeral, a service that was in keeping with the culture of a middleclass, Pākehā male of his age. As I mourned, helping carry my grandfather’s coffin through the doors of the church, I heard the voices of my people, of Kia Āio te Noho, erupt as they farewelled and honoured my grandfather, a man many of them had never met. In their passion (their ihi, wehi, and wana), our connection—our unity—was tangible. Their presence and voices acknowledged that my story was constructed from interwoven relational bonds with many people: my tūpuna (my ancestors) and all those who have influenced my life. As I belonged to my grandfather, I also belong to my brothers and sisters of Kia Āio te Noho—these unseen bonds of relationship weaving a tapestry of connection. This is belonging. It was the kind of belonging that sends a shiver down your spine, that lifts stooped heads, that nourishes saddened spirits, that filled the eyes of all who attended my grandfather’s funeral with tears. It was the act of solidarity—of being present when I needed it most—that epitomised belonging for me and acknowledged that, in life and death, our stories live on through these relational bonds. This kind of belonging isn’t easy. Allowing others to have a claim on our time, to commit to serving our community even when it’s inconvenient, or doesn’t fit our work schedule, confronts our individualised culture and our instincts for self-preservation. There are times when I just want to run to my room and escape from it

all. At times this is a fine option, there are always times where a break from people is necessary. However I feel like I hear this kind of self-preservation and individual comfort too often encouraged as a virtue. “Escape, avoid entangling yourself in other people’s problems, and things will work themselves out.” We can escape to a screen, behind a desk, or within the safety of a white picket fence. But when we succeed in escaping, when we succeed in keeping the complications of other people out, we also keep ourselves locked in. We can talk about bonds of belonging, but we are often tentative to make them. When we are ‘tied’ to someone we are forced to move with them. Through their ups and their downs, through the good and bad. However, increasingly we are being encouraged to fend for ourselves, to be self-reliant and self-sufficient. Our bonds are increasingly with objects rather than places, with our own desires rather than other people.

There is a sense of unity that is created when you host together, when you struggle together, and when you succeed together.

I was talking about this the other day with one of my aunties. She said that no matter how nice it is to be fussed over and served by waiters and chefs at a restaurant table, it will never match the warmth of being invited to share a banquet at someone’s home, or being at the dinner table with your own whānau. It isn’t the food or the wine or even the environment that makes you feel like you belong, it’s the people. Our connection with those around us is what sustains us. In my whānau, putting on a banquet requires everyone to contribute, so that everyone can sit down to enjoy the meal. Some of us are better cooks, some take care of the cleaning, and some make sure the table is beautifully set in the way only they know how to do. But it’s the faces around the table, sharing stories and meals together over the times we make for each other—that is the picture of belonging to me. It’s the knowledge that, if you weren’t at that table, with those people, you would be truly missed. So I encourage you to be long in a place, to look to the needs of the collective before your own desires, and to be present at the banquet wherever it may be, or whomever it may be with. From my experience this is how the seeds of kōtahitanga start to grow. •

Kirke is studying law and te reo Māori at Victoria University, and is part of a community in Wellington that provides hospitality to those who need a place to stay, or just need a cuppa and a chat. He grew up in Urban Vision—a network of intentional communities and an order of the Anglican Church. Sharing music and going tramping are just some of the ways he fosters his passion for connecting with new people and exploring new places.

Kirke Sawrey | 47

A QUIET LEGACY BY ABIGAIL EGDEN

“A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.” – Andrew Carnegie

48 | A Quiet Legacy

ezelligheid is a Dutch word that does not directly translate into English. It is a rather abstract sensation of individual wellbeing that is shared with others; a positive atmosphere, flow, or vibe that warms personal encounters. Time spent at the family bach, a cozy cafe with old friends, or a crowded pub during an All Blacks match may conjure this elusive quality of warm togetherness. Or you may even find yourself like me, feeling a bit gezellig after spending time at the local library. I’d never really noticed it before, but libraries are community hotspots. New immigrants popping in to get help printing out forms, job seekers spending time on the computers, young children learning to read for the first time, homeless people finding shelter on a stormy day, and busy office folks dashing in after work to pick up a pre-ordered book. There are travellers skyping loved ones on the wifi, kids racing each other to the library after school to use the iPads, and old men spread out in a sunny corner with the daily newspaper. Art students lugging home giant volumes of Dali, Twombley, and Monet while first time mothers juggle a screaming baby and a handful of parenting guide books. And by the door, a policewoman stopping by to look for a young kid who has run away from school, and a sad little boy hanging up a poster for his missing cat. Librarians know that people in their particular neighbourhood are more likely to get out recipe books and biographies than books about philosophy. They know that Lucy has been waiting for the latest book of that series to come out, and that Mr Pierce would just love this book that just arrived. They also know that the man mumbling to himself in the corner is a patient from the mental hospital up the road because they see him every week, and they know that Mrs. Turner is now bedridden, so leave her pre-ordered books on the bottom shelf on Tuesday, because her son with the bad back will come by to pick them up. In a public library, it doesn’t matter how you look or where you’re from, or even if you have a library card—you are welcome. And for a brief time as you bury your head in a book amongst a small crowd of strangers, differences don’t seem to matter so much in the silence. These unique community spaces were not formed by accident, but are the result of intentional design, formed by people who saw the needs around them and left a legacy still enjoyed by local people today. At a time when New Zealand society was more formally divided into classes, a young man with a love of reading dreamed of a place to be shared by all. William Leys was eleven years old when his family moved to Auckland in 1863. He grew up in the Ponsonby area and started a book binding business at age 20, giving away the first 100 pounds he earned to a family member in need. With a “simple hearted desire to make his life of service to the community in which he lived,” he wondered how despite advances in industry, the poor seemed to struggle more than ever. In 1893 he wrote a pamphlet about the social benefits of the pension which circulated the country, and Prime Minister Seddon credited the popularity of this campaign as part of the successful introduction of the Old Age Pension Act in New Zealand.

William’s last letters were filled with concern for the troubled youth of Ponsonby. Children finished school by age 12 and had begun to frequent the local pub known as the ‘Gluepot’. Without education or resources to continue their learning, they became trapped in a cycle of poverty. William Leys dreamed of a community space that could extend educational, social, and recreational privilege to the local people. But before his dreams were realised he died in 1899 at 47, on his way to England to address his ill health.

The Institute and surrounding community progressed through times of great adversity. Upon his death, William’s younger brother, Thomson W. Leys, used his network of influence as the co-owner and editor of the Auckland Star to gather support for the idea. William had left his small estate to this purpose, and, with a group of generous private donations and a gift of land from the Auckland Council, the Leys’ Institute opened its doors five years after his death. At the opening day ceremony, T.W. Leys made a speech celebrating the life of his brother, and the dream of the public library and institute he had bequeathed: “Intellectual culture is not the only end which we intend this institution to serve. We desire to minister to human needs, which are not less important.” The Leys’ Institute hoped to meet these needs, by providing a place of belonging, stimulation, safety and opportunity to the local youth, opening up a gymnasium and meeting rooms for all people to enjoy. Although there was a five pound fine for breaking the silence in the reading room, a separate desk for women, and men had to take their hats off inside, it was a space to be shared by all. Children were free to come, use the gymnasium, and take lessons in the hall. There was an annual membership fee to borrow books from the library, but no cost to use the books in the reading room. No political or religious meetings were allowed to be held in the lecture rooms, and in a time where communist ideals and the divide between Catholics and Anglicans was enough to exile families from one another, a public space that welcomed people regardless of affiliation was radical. The Institute hosted the Literacy and Debating Class, Shakespeare and Rhetoric Club, Chess Club, Football Club, and Camera Club, and T.W. Leys himself was president of the Ponsonby Boys Brass Band, which toured the country in the summer of 1922-23. Each year, a well-loved series of ‘winter lectures’ took place, and a wall underneath the library features hundreds of signatures of some of the regulars and visitors who took the podium, which in later years included Dr Seuss and Joy Adamson, the lion taming author of Born Free. The Institute and surrounding community progressed through times of great adversity that could have broken the resilience of a neighbourhood already struggling with poverty. Through the war Abigail Egden | 49

Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries

At a time when New Zealand society was more formally divided into classes, a young man with a love of reading dreamed of a place to be shared by all. years, the raging influenza epidemic of 1918, and the Depression, no family was spared the grief of calamity. But at the Leys Institute, children who had lost friends and family found a place of welcome and safety. In 1909, the Library developed the first children’s collection in Australasia, the books housed in a room found down a little staircase, nestled between the bookshelves. In the 1960s Leys’ staff introduced New Zealand’s first “Improver’s Collection,” a programme designed to teach illiterate local children to read. T.W. Leys spent six months personally sourcing and cataloguing the 5000 books for the library, while fulfilling his duties as editor of the Auckland Star, a newspaper which continued to donate books to the hungry readers in the neighbourhood over the next fifty years. “If the ardent student gets through one volume a day, he has literary pabulum to last him for about 14 years. Long before that time we hope to have another 5000 ready for him, because we mean to keep up-to-date, so that he need not apprehend failure in the supply.” T.W. Leys made this promise in his opening speech, a guarantee that has been kept to this day.

However, when one of the founding trustees died, the Institute had no choice but to join the Auckland Public Library system. In 1964, a formal ceremony handed over the building and its collections to the Council. A Professor of English at the nearby University of Auckland made an emotional speech—he had grown up in a poor family in Herne Bay and had spent his childhood in the reading room at Leys’ Library, filling his head with the knowledge that would have been otherwise unobtainable to him. He attributed his success to the opportunities afforded to him by the hopeful legacy left by the Leys brothers. Before the last of the Leys family trustees passed away, their final act was to raise $1,000,000 for the renovation of the Institute to upgrade and restore some of the facilities, to ensure the full use into the future—and in 1991 they handed the library over to full council management. Today the Institute is part of the massive Council network that services the public. But under the library, unseen by the patrons, is a network of rooms connected by a little wooden staircase. In this annex lies a collection of treasures: toys, well-worn books, and forgotten photographs. There’s dusty records, ink wells, and gas lamps, a very old map with an old hand written note ‘please keep,’ and a wall of colourful crayon drawn signatures inscribed by patrons of the library over one hundred years—a delightfully haphazard record of the memories of the community that has gathered in this place over many decades These days, children come for Wriggle and Rhyme and story time in the children’s wing, and women gather for book club each month. Meditation groups meet upstairs, while dance troupes practice their routines in the hall. Local students volunteer their time to do the shelving, and elderly patrons fondly reminisce about Coral Ridling, one of the librarians who founded the ‘Improver’s Collection.’ The Leys’ Orchestra still rehearses in the children’s section of the library, and the twin portraits of Thomson and William Leys hang side by side, overlooking it all, as they have since 1906. Can gezelligheid leave a legacy? An older patron thinks that despite all the change, the library still holds the same warmth. At the opening of the Institute, T.W. Leys spoke of the far-reaching weight of his brother’s ideas: “Though all that was mortal of him lies in a lonely grave at Ceylon, what he dreamed of and worked for will remain to the great advantage of the inhabitants of this city long after we have passed away.” Leys’ quiet legacy lies in the bones of this well-loved building, a place for all people who, through times of great adversity, found welcome within its walls. •

Abigail Egden is a writer, filmmaker, and anthropologist. She finished her Anthropology degree at University of Canterbury in 2016, and moved to Auckland to continue a research project that she is adapting into a documentary film. She also works for the Ākina foundation, helps create the Neat Places city guides and works as a library assistant at Leys Institute. You’ll find her at the local cafe or drinking prosecco at Coco’s Cantina.

50 | A Quiet Legacy

Abigail Egden |

Community is not an ideal; it is people. It is you and I. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JEAN VANIER

52 | Story

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