新闻 / WIHIRI NIUHI
NEXUS
More stories are emerging of ARISE interns being paid out substantial amounts of money to stay quiet about abuse suffered in the church. A former member told RNZ they were paid out ‘tens of thousands’ of dollars in a settlement after witnessing lead pastors Brent and John Cameron bullying teenagers - this included ‘ripping into 15-year-old girls over the wrong lighting,’ ‘farting in their hands and putting it in the faces of interns,’ and a few other things I don’t feel comfortable mentioning in a student magazine. The person also alleges that interns were expected to work anywhere up to 60+ hours in total a week for free, including 20 hour days on Sundays. The person’s father told RNZ that he saw ARISE as a ‘cult,’ which honestly, given the definitions of a cult, they aren’t far off. A leaked internal document seen by Nexus saw ARISE claiming that they had never signed an NDA, contradicting claims of ex-members who allege to have been paid up to $90,000 for their silence. Nexus have also interviewed meme page @arisememes, which you can check out on our website. A recent study by the Tertiary Education Commission in Aotearoa found that 40 percent of students who pass NCEA level 2 are not ‘functionally literate or numerate.’ Writing for RNZ, education correspondent John Gerritsen reported that the NZQA report showed many high school students didn’t know how to use full stops at the end of a sentence, recognise the difference between ‘written’ and ‘spoken’ english, or how many minutes there are in an hour (it’s 60, btw). This report follows concerns from the Graeme Dingle Foundation regarding young people ‘disengaging from their peers, education, and society’ after extended isolation periods due to COVID-19. Y’know, maybe young people aren’t as good at memorising made up colonial / capitalist constructs like grammar and time - but maybe the education system in Aotearoa isn’t doing a very good job at moving with the times and
understanding that intelligence can’t just be measured by how good you are at fullstops. And lastly, despite efforts to save it, Hamilton’s Founders Theatre is set to be demolished in July. Open since 1962, Founders hosted international artists like Louis Armstrong, Split Enz, Village People and other boomer acts before closing in 2016 due to ‘health and safety concerns.’ Local advocacy group Theatre of the Impossible have been negotiating with Hamilton City Council to try and save the venue, but were voted down last week after Council said they had ‘little confidence in the trust’s budgets.’ Council plans to turn the space into a ‘multi-purpose park and community performance space’ after they conduct hundreds of pointless Teams meetings about it and do the exact opposite of what the public asks them to do.
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