Entry received from: Greater Wellington Regional Council
Category: The BERL Award for Excellence in Collaborating for Results
There are over 200,000 people in the Greater Wellington region living alongside rivers, who need protecting from the everincreasing risks of flooding and erosion.
Immediate engineering projects help reduce the impacts in the short term, but long-term protection can only be delivered by creating resilient and empowered communities.
People within the corrections system are the most marginalised within our communities. If we can reconnect them with their whenua, their people, and their marae, that in turn creates a ripple effect within their whānau and wider still, plays a vital part in creating resilient communities.
This is the story of how multiple agencies came together alongside local iwi to create Ngāhere-o-Tāne. A 6-month programme for men within the system (mental health, addictions, probation and imprisonment) that offers a holistic approach to addressing intergenerational trauma, direct trauma, cultural separation and austerity.
At the heart of the programme is the ‘seed idea’ which educates and re-connects men to their community. In the programme the Council obtains seeds of native trees, which are grown in corrections facilities, then planted on the banks of the river, by iwi and local schools. On release, inmates can see their plants and feel a re-connection with nature and their community.
Thank you to our category sponsor