World Community Development Conference ‘From the Edge’ in Darwin, Australia
In June, Rolande Paekau and Gabrielle Parson attended the World Community Development Conference ‘From the Edge’ in Darwin. What an amazing opportunity to learn and share with other indigenous communities and community development practitioners from around the world.
Starting with a beautiful evening welcome by the Larrakia people and Aunty B, we then launched into three full days of conference and ended with a day of exploring what community development looks like in Darwin communities.
We built new connections with other community coordinators from around Aotearoa. The group as a whole presented to Aunty B as a gesture of indigenous reciprocation and respect, a whaikairo kete woven locally by one of our kuia Rangi Kereopa, raranga master weaver.
Some things we learned from our trip:
- That our Whāingaroa community wants to work together to create a healthy, vibrant, and resilient community.
- That we are all learning as a community, what and how this looks like and can be. We’re allowed to make mistakes, so we can get it right together; It’s not easy work!
- Working in an indigenous Māori space is complex. Tangata whenua/hapū are the people of the land, and must be recognised by the community as being “the pulse and ever-flowing tide” of Whāingaroa community.
We are excited to look for opportunities to bring us together more closely as a community and share our learnings from our Darwin trip.
Thanks to support from the Department of Internal Affairs, through our partnership with them.
