Our Executive Leadership Team recently travelled to Christchurch and Auckland where they met with community stakeholders for a series of engagements.
These important engagements were an opportunity for the Ministry to update communities about our work programme, priorities, and changes at the Ministry. Mervin Singham, our Chief Executive, Pratima Namasivayam, Deputy Chief Executive, Advisory, Analytics and Ministerial, and Berlinda Chin, Acting Deputy Chief Executive, Strategic Engagement and Stakeholder Insights, also reinforced the Ministry’s commitment to supporting ethnic communities.
The four sessions, two in each city, also provided an opportunity for community leaders and ethnic service providers to share their ideas, concerns, challenges and hopes. These interactive sessions provided meaningful two-way communication, which genuinely helps inform the Ministry’s work.
Approximately 150 people were involved in the four sessions, which included a meeting with the Kiwi-Muslim community in Christchurch, ethnic service providers in Auckland and pan-ethnic community leaders in both cities.
Our Executive Leadership Team discussed the Ministry’s journey so far, recent changes to the organisation and our focus on looking to outcomes that deliver at a macro/system level – issues that have the greatest impact across ethnic communities. They explained how we plan to continue to work with communities in the regions. This includes community hubs where Ministry staff visit the regions to engage with large groups on specific topics. They also presented the Ministry’s current areas of focus, including our upcoming Ethnic Xchange business symposium and the Indicators Report.
There was a lot of interest in the Indicators Report. The Indicators Report is being compiled by our Analytics, Monitoring and Evaluation team who has been working hard over the past two years to gather extensive data on ethnic communities. The first-of-its-kind report will form a consolidated picture of our communities by presenting a wide range of data. This will inform our colleagues across government on what investment is needed in areas of health and employment, for example.
Community leaders welcomed this research and asked how they could help contribute to it. “How can we help you put that data together that’s a true representation of the people?,” one person asked. We encourage you to do your own research, collate and publish data and share it with us. This will help build a better understanding of ethnic communities in New Zealand.
Other discussions focused on education and racism, immigration, youth mental health, civic engagement, family violence and migrant settlement, among other topics. The conversations were open and honest, with genuine sincerity and commitment from both the Ministry and communities. We are grateful for the opportunity to engage with and collaborate with communities in this way and thank them for their time, and for all they do to support Aotearoa’s ethnic communities.
