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Kia ora,
Matariki hunga nui (Matariki brings us together).
This year Aotearoa New Zealand has celebrated Matariki and the Māori New Year as a motu (country) for the first time.
The Matariki values of unity, sharing, and connecting are close to our heart at InCommon. As we come together as a whānau to reflect on the past year we are grateful to all of you for joining us on this journey (ngā mihi to the more than 1000 of you who took our online quiz!), and to our friends, some of whom feature below, doing incredible mahi in our communities.
InCommon wants to kōrero about the things we have in common and the things that make us unique, and we hope you’ll join us! Let’s build our cultural knowledge together by being open to the ethnic and cultural differences that are a part of our society, and talking actively about diversity.
He ira tangata. He ira rongomaiwhiti tāu.
(Our differences make us unique and we all have things in common.)
Ngā mihi nui,
The InCommon whānau
InCommon Online Quiz
Recently our online quiz hit a milestone of having more than 1000 people take it and find out what they have in common with others.
What’s your favourite kind of movie? Do you take your shoes off at the door? Do you have a spiritual practice? Here is some of what others have shared.
Discover more about yourself and others in our 4-minute fun online quiz...
Share Kai
Mahia te Aroha and InCommon are collaborating on Share Kai, an initiative that offers a gentle entry point into what can be deep, important conversations that enable us to examine what it means to call Aotearoa New Zealand home.
Sharing kai, or breaking bread is an age-old tradition, and sits at the heart of most, if not all, cultures. Share Kai is about connecting over food, and getting to know those around the table on a deeper level. This simple event provides an opening to start to explore the themes of culture, belonging, diversity and inclusion.
We are partnering with a small number of schools, both primary and secondary, and workplaces to help shape this project.
A series of InCommon quiz activities will be offered that encourage fun conversations as people come together, get to know each other and share kai. Here is a sneak peak at a few of the quiz questions, what do you have in common with our Mahia te Aroha InCommon whānau?
Photo credits: Marty Anderson, Rami Baha Photos and Jade
Immigrant Journeys
Over the last two months we have been lucky to take part in two events alongside the Lady Khadija Trust's ‘Immigrant Journeys’ project.
In May LinC Rourou shone the spotlight on interviewees from the Immigrant Journeys documentaries and encouraged roundtable conversations about how we can work together to create peace and unity in Aotearoa New Zealand. In June participants and stakeholders came together to celebrate the success of Immigrant Journeys.
To help people connect with someone new InCommon facilitated the welcome activity as people arrived and the mini-quiz activity during these events, both activities are available in our toolkit (available to download free from our website).
We loved hearing from the speakers about their experiences making Aotearoa home, seeing people connect and celebrating this incredible mahi.
Check out their website for more: immigrantjourneys.org.nz
Photo credit: Centuri Chan
Gap Filler DiversCity 2022
We’re loving Gap Filler’s latest project, DiversCity 2022, which opened in the Botanic Gardens in May. A project co-created by five ethnic communities from Waitaha Canterbury: The Canterbury Zurkhāneh Club, the Christchurch Iranian Society + University of Canterbury Iranian Society, Embracing Diversity, the Pakistani Association of Canterbury, and the United Afghan Association of Canterbury.
Each community decorated one of five curved seats with traditional patterns, colours and imagery to help tell their stories and share their cultural heritage with Ōtautahi Christchurch. Together these seats create a pop-up amphitheatre for public events, concerts, and cultural celebrations. Later in May tamariki from Embracing Diversity #IAmUnique celebrated their #diverscity seat with a fabulous drum dance, perfected over weeks of practice and performed to an audience of whānau and friends. During the Matariki Tīrama Mai Festival staff from Tūranga read stories in the seats to an audience each evening.
Ka pai! We’re looking forward to what else is shared in this space!
Photo credit: Gap Filler
Canterbury Stories
Have you heard about Canterbury Stories? It’s a digital heritage repository, holding over 40,000 digital objects including photographs, videos, audio files, and PDF publications about the people and communities of Waitaha Canterbury.
Sarah Tester and Simon Daisley are the Community Stories Liaison librarians tasked with developing relationships with communities to assist them in collecting, managing, and promoting their local histories and stories through Community Stories. Community collections are organic and can be continually expanded upon with additional material over time. The repository allows for material in community collections to be described in multiple languages and the level of copyright for works determined by the group.
Check out some of the existing published collections from these Canterbury communities:
- Bangla Dance Group
- Christchurch Bengali Community
- Hazara community
- St Gebriel Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
Contact the Community Stories Liaison librarians at: LibraryCommunityStories@ccc.govt.nz
Do you follow us on social media? We’re dedicated to creating meaningful and informative content that celebrates diversity and fosters inclusion, come join us!
Ngā mihi nui!
Thank you for joining us for our July pānui (newsletter) we look forward to next time!
Mā te wā,
The InCommon Whānau
Photo: InCommon at LinC Rourou Immigrant Journeys event, May 2022, credit: Marty Anderson.
