“As a board we want to engage with our community in different ways, and these forums give us the opportunity to do that. To enable us to hear from our diverse ethnic and cultural communities, we altered the format so we could have a different conversation with locals we don’t always hear from.”
Last month, the Howick Local Board hosted our second community forum for the term. Our first was for organisations that support our communities in need, this one was for our diverse ethnic and cultural communities.
We're fortunate to have incredibly diverse communities living in our area, but our normal engagement models mean we don't always hear from them. We continue to have our Ethnic Leaders Forum, but this session allowed us to hear from different voices and in a different format. In particular the panel had representatives from a younger generation of ethnically diverse locals who were second or third generation Kiwis.
Some incredibly useful insights came from this evening, including some great positive messages that people do feel a sense of belonging and connection. However we can always do better and we were encouraged to keep it simple.
Massive thank you to everyone involved in making this happen - staff, Board Members and the public.
We'll continue to run these sorts of forums throughout the term, providing another avenue for the Board to engage with the people we represent and serve.
“This forum was just the beginning of a longer, deeper conversation about how we can better serve the needs of our diverse communities. As our population continues to grow and evolve, we need to adapt to their changing needs."