This Sub-tropical Paradise

People here go on about heritage: 'In the UK you have so much heritage blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-blah-blah'. Everywhere has heritage, in the beginning was something; we didn't come from nothingness. These stereotypical images of historic grandoise architecture that defines British culture represent most countries as much as McDonalds and Cola do. We live in the Post-Modern age where things signify multiple definitions and in this global village the people that live in a place are not a homogenous community in race, ethnicity, sexuality, bodiedness, age, creed... What people can't get over when they meet me is the combination of Scottish accent and my Chinese face; others don't even notice and maybe they are the ones who are the most enlightened because afterall, does it really matter?

Last Thursday I met up with Brooke from Ecomatters, she's a Community Garden Facilitator and she decided to come in today to chat to the teenage mums. She talked about creating community gardens out of donations from businesses, and being resourceful, reusing waste like glass jars, plastic pots, going through recycle boxes. Why not? One man's junk is another man's treasure; one man's martyr is another mans's terrorist and all that... so she talked about the various projects Ecomatters manages and is starting up. Projects, some of which are run in partnership, such as:

• Sustainable Homes Programme
• Sustainable Living Centre Come - open to the public and provides information, displays, workshops and an eco library
• Water Wise Up Helping schools, businesses and households reduce their water use.

So I've been sick which is why I haven't written in a week; and what a difference a day makes, never mind a week. I went to see a Chinese Herbalist and Acupuncturist, Dr Angela Longo, who I met at and Awakening the Dreamer Symposium last month. I went to see her to explore if Chinese medecine has anything to offer me. Like reflexology, Bowen technique, other holistic therapies, indeed, most interests I have in alternative methods, I neglect longer than I should. A sure sympton of my Western upbringing and one that New Zealand is guiding me closer to...

Visiting a healer is one of the many things that have been on my to do list for a few years. Anyways, she has helped me on that path of regaining balance in my life. Chinese medecine, she told me, has a delevoped understanding of the body and health beyond the Greeks, and more importantly, adapted for the modern world. So I've been learning about Heartwaves which I do everyday and Non-violent communication and will find workshops in Edinburgh when I get back in 6 days. I've been drinking Chinese herbal tea and pills for the last 8 days and had acupuncture. My first treatment was an amazing experience. Shooting pains from the top of my arm travelled down to my fingertips so that it was painful to chop vegetables. I've had a chronic stiffness in that shoulder for a few years and ignored it until then. Debilitating shooting pains are a sure sign of imbalance. Angela put the first needle into my arm and I felt and energy travelling from my shoulder slowly down to my 3rd and 4th fingers, that are my triple heater and pericardium meridians, and my hands going tingly. That was last weekend, this weekend Angela tutored me including how to tell people's illnesses from looking at their tongues.

Anyways, back to the community development... so today I left the Teen mums, partly cause they were still winding up after 2 weeks on holiday and partly cause I'm still sick. I have this chesty cough but I'm telling it to go away so I hope it does before my friend's wedding on Saturday in Macau. Anyways, the fact that they're now in touch with Ecomatters, they have support from Brooke who is knowledgeable in that kind of thing. I was going to facilitate a session in which they write a letter to send to businesses asking for donations but I called up a landscaping company and smoothtalked the manager rather more easily than expected. Also, I didn't want to spread my germs around the babies. So I'm going to see them on Friday morning to say bye before I fly out at midnight...

This is the back garden now. I aksed Averil to email photos of its development. I wish I was staying so I sould see it unfold with my own eyes into a colourful fertile garden for the kids and mums... I know it'll be wonderful. Shame it's moving all to the new premises in Henderson High School next year, but anything worth doing is always challenging...

So last Wednesday was the 3rd session with the Jobseekers Network and i have to say it was a tough day. I felt like I was contantly under attack from a few of the strongest characters, the leaders of the pack. I say that with reservations because any leader realises that the individuals in their team have as much power as each other because they play different, but equally important roles. My methods, views, intentions and person were under criticism and while it's difficult, I enjoy this challenge which obliges me to be resolute and strong in my argument. At times of crisis we become strong or we give up, or die. So I ended up presenting the unemployment code and it went down well. Some of the evaluations were gold. A few of them under Did you learn anything new today. If so, what? ... Yes, but I don't know what... Yes, not to let negative comments let me down and bring down my self-esteem... yes, the root causes of society's upheaval... Success! :)

Also, root causes was a eureka moment. One woman talked about unemployment individualising people which is the opposite of when natural disasters occur, like the tsunami in Samoa, a cause for which the whole of New Zealand donated $500 000 as of last week. I can smell the distinct aroma of creeping critical consciousness in the breeze...

This Wednesday we're having the Jobseekers Network Cafe and celebrating me leaving... yet to decide what questions but one will go along the lines of What can we do to ensure the long-term success of JSN? and one What do you get out of coming here and how has it changed your life?  and maybe How could the JSN build on what it currently does to improve the lives of jobseekers now and in the future?  What do you think? Please feel free to feedback!

Back to Thursday. After meeting Brooke I went to Shakti Women's Aid Auckland after being invited by the Director to attend a staff and volunteer training. I talked about my insights since being here in comparing the anti-violence movements in the UK and New Zealand. They also found it entertaining, or 'cute' that I look chinese and talk scottish. I think it'll be many generations before the novelty wears off... anyways, I blabbed on a bit about the Maori and Pacfic Islander dynamics, the term Black and Minority Ethnic and black feminist ideology etc. etc. those of you who know me well know what that sounds like, haha! It was really interesting sitting in on the training. I learned how they assess cases and they also do pick-ups of women from their houses and sometimes when there's faimly and partners around. I was so inspired and they sound like veritable super women, speeding off in cars taking women away from domestic violence. I found it also very interesting for the case study sessions on high risk cases with: drugs/gang-relations, Sikh, Punjabi and Somalian communities, the last of which practice honour-killing... Despite the heaviness of the topic, the company contrasted this and were welcoming, curious, and appreciative of what I've done, what I had to say and of my life in general, asking me what my heritage and upbringing is, and you know how much I love answering those questions...

This picture, and the one of me at the top, is of Swanson Train Station Cafe where I met my practice mentor, Meredith, who played a role as a house wife/community development worker in turning this hut into the new toilets in the 90s:

..and transporting this train station from Avondale, 15 odd kms away, because it was getting demolished to make way for a new one. It's a wonderful building, like travelling back in time, with a log fire and chimney (not sure if it works but it's summer so it wouldn't be on anyways).

The community bought the land around it and paid $10 for the building; it was cheaper for the constructors to charge them to take it away than to pay a demolition company. Meredith said it was an empty wreck with human waste, condoms etc. covering the floor and the community cleaned it up. It's still got the original floor which is a glorious weathered wood and oozes character, the whole place does. Hard to imagine it graffiti, faeces covered...eugh! Anyways, the council couldn't afford it but the community raised funds to make it happen themselves and now earn from leasing out the cafe, and pay the council for upkeep of the surrounding land. An amazing example of a community in action!

You gotta go see it if you're passing through. They had a small display board showing before and after. A wonderful and inspiring example of real community development and my mentor began her community development career from participating in it. Meredith now works for the council at the green Waitakere City Council. I've been blessed with being at the heart of a vibrant city with a strong history of community development and I feel glad for the opportunity. It's contibuted to making me feel at home and I feel so settled that I'd be really happy if I stayed longer. I've gained a big extended family imprinted in memory from my time here and I am already planning to come back.

Happy days (..except for my lettuce growing, it shrivelled up to a brown thing last week...)

Every 12 days, a woman or child is murdered in New Zealand; a woman is murdered every six hours, in South Africa.

I met an interesting woman at Viviana, skeptic and disappointed in New Zealand's domestic violence services, or 'family violence, as they call it here, and the title was the alarming fact she told me. I replied with that little known and more alarming fact that a woman is killed in South Africa every 6 hours. There's always someone else,  somewhere else, who has it worse... I'm not sure if there is a higher femicide rate that South Africa's: does anyone know?

 

Viviana is not a member of the National Collective of Women's Refuges, the equivalent to Scotttish Women's Aid back home, for the following reasons that Membership Rules dictate (however I can't seem to access them from the website so I go by the worker):

• refuges can only house women for 2 weeks only 
• refuges do not accept women with additional support needs
• volunteers run refuges with few paid staff

She said they also are fundamentalist feminists, lacking a grounding practical application of their theory and holistic understanding and approach to anti-violence work. Women aren't supported to leave abusive relationships and re-establish new lives with their children; how can you possibly do that in 2 weeks? Maybe you can, but only in exceptional circumstances; most women need more than 2 weeks to break free from the chains of an abusive partner, and even then, it's only the physical chains. The psychological and emotional damage takes sometimes a lifetime to heal, or never...

Anways, she talked disparagingly of New Zealander's and her colleagues' work ethic. While she's comfortable working with women with additional drugs, alcohol, mental health needs, her peers aren't and it's because there is a mentality resistant to change. It's not just about resources, although that is an issue, she said; staff have no training budget but they wouldn't use it even if they did. The only reason she's different is because she's travelled and worked around the world, Ireland, England, Korea, etc. etc. 9 years after, she was horrified when she came back that things had gone back 50 years... I'm not really sure in what ways because she didn't explain.. She did have an interesting take on co-gender prevention group work. When in groups, there can be no collusion. It's probably more difficult, but it's not impossible... group's have cliques and couples and relationships within aren't necessarily equal... when I work in groups there is the attempt to prevent that from happening, definitely however I believe that where there's a will, a way shall be found, or created and if two people want to collude, they'll make it happen... isn't that how doemstic abuse starts?

Back to the refuges:

• weekly rent costs $450 to $600 per week, that's approx 200 to 300 pounds, not including bills, living costs so women do receive benefits but they come nowhere near to covering it
• women seek refuge so that they recieve priority when applying for council housing with Housing NZ however, unlike Edinburgh, the council have no obligation to house women presenting homeless because of domestic abuse
• some refuges at Viviana are not staffed ie. women don't receive support while there and basically have a building (There are only 5 staff, down from 9 when the previous manager left. Not only that, but those staff are on call 24 hrs outside of office hours...unpaid) ... is it better to have volunteers rather than no staff at all...??

So the picture's bleak for women being tortured by their abusive partners in New Zealand. I almost rescheduled the meeting to next week because the 5 staff were snowed under with court appearances at the Family Violence court each Wednesday. They seem to do a lot more legal support and advocacy work for women here... the staff I spoke to was also of the opinion that the Family Violence Unit were biased towards men, as part of a patriarchal society originating from england. She felt that all the men got programmes and support services for them and very little for women. I'm beginning to see her point; fathering week was a big deal and I've heard more about the men's counselling and parenting programmes that I have for women. I thought that this might be correctly directed towards the men as they're the ones who are at fault, but maybe she was expressing a disatisfaction more with the unequal allocation of resources between men's rehabilitation and women's protection, understandably.

This meeting was different from any other I've had with agencies so far. Partly to do with their stretched staff time and resources I guess. Partly to do with this staff's strange contradictory, ambiguous and indignant attitude towards her own sector. While she complained and compared New Zealand to other countries harshly, she wasn't trying to change it. Indeed, she was criticising in others the very short-comings she displayed herself. This woman's possibly been in this field too long. Or maybe her character's just the kind to look at the worst in people and get fixated on them, despite all the good that's there. Shame, because that's the first sure sign of a dying organisation: people tend to leave organisations with a self-defeating culture. People need to celebrate achievements and have visionary focus on change for the better, together. I'm feeling really sad about the anti-violence sector in New Zealand. the more I learn about it..and I haven't even been to the maori refuge yet...

Back to Familiar Territory: 'Family Violence' versus Domestic Abuse

There is no feminist movement in New Zealand. At least, not by my understanding within the anti-violence sector and in comparison to the UK. On Friday, at the end of my first week at Community Waitakere, I went to visit Debbie at WAVES: Waitakere Anti Violence Essential Services, and was shocked at the poor standard of non-profit and statutory support services available in a country that I've been impressed by so far. It's maybe a sign of the high standard of community development work I've seen all this week at Community Waitakere, an enivironmentally focussed community development project; very different from the violence prevention sector.

There are no 24 hour refuges for women and children with additional support needs, whose experiences of domestic abuse are complicated by subtance misuse/addiction, and/or mental health issues or any number of social factors. In fact, the District Health Boards screen women for domestic abuse but if there are additional support needs they are turned away; the state reaches out a helping hand only to take it away after having stirred up hope in the women who need it the most. The state does more damage than good with their empty promises. Every competent Community development worker knows meaningful interventions require long-term holistic approaches to social action.

Debbie then talked about the state's window dressing of the gender neutralising campaign material of the anti-violence strategy from what promoised to be a meaningful action towards challenging domestic abuse. The 'Te Rito' Family Violence Prevention Strategy produced by New Zealand's Ministry of Social Development in Feb 2002. She said that there is a backlash to feminists who mainly belong to the generation older than mine. 'Women are as violent as men' it says in this hand-out she says she is obliged to distribute in her job. The window-dressing happened 5 years ago she said, when the labour government were in power...

Every country has its strengths and weaknesses and that applies to the UK too. Just like people. Politicians who talk the talk and walk away when it comes to action let us down every day in the UK and in NZ. She works with WAVES to train agencies about domestic abuse (DA) and tells me that while referrals to DA services are normal procedure, unlike the UK, there is little partnership working between network agencies and absolutely no attempt by agencies to meet the needs of DA survivors within services. I didn't want to tell her the truth about agencies I visit who have no concept of the spectrum of DA or its impact on survivors because she thinks that we, in the UK, are waaaay ahead of NZ...

She talked about a mental health organisation who got defensive about a DVD they produced called ''he drove me mad' as they took it as a criticism on their lackings. There's a vitally important website it supports women surivivors through also. I have a copy of the DVD to take home to Edinburgh Women's Aid and a copy of another extremely interesting research from the Leitner Centre for International Law and Justice looking at domestic abuse across NZ in the context of international human rights: "It's Not OK: New Zealand's Efforts to Eliminate Violence Against Women".

Debbie also brought my attention to the the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse 'the national centre for collating and disseminating information about domestic and family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand'. An amazing resource. I wonder if we have the same thing for Scotland/UK? I was thinking after I left that I forgot to bring leaflets from my work at Edinburgh Women's Aid and that it's a shame because I've come so far and it adds a little something to to a first-time tran-global meeting of like-minded people....I'll remember for next time.

I was blown away by Debbie's kindness and the common interest and experience we have that made us get on instantly. She's agreed to request invitations for me to see a refuge and visit DA agencies via their boards and I hope to go out to do this in the next few weeks, however she said it probably won't be worth trying to organise a visit to a Maori refuge.

So back to familiar territory and it reminded me of what I left behind in Edinburgh and what I'll be going back to in 6 weeks. This week has flown by....