The public presentation at end of the one-day TacklingPovertyNZ workshop on 29 March 2016, saw members of the community gathered at the Queenstown Memorial Hall to hear the speakers’ observations of the day, followed by the 28 workshop solutions seeking to tackle poverty. Mayor Vanessa van Uden opened the presentation stating Queenstown is very privileged to be the ‘guinea pigs’ for the TacklingPovertyNZ workshop tour and welcomes this much needed discussion around poverty and empathy. This presentation enabled those who could not attend the workshop during the day to hear ideas on how the local community might tackle poverty going forward.
The event would not have been possible without the ongoing support of the New Zealand Treasury, local collaborators Queenstown Lakes District Council and the Catalyst Trust, and local sponsors Deco Backpackers and The Rees Hotel. We would like to thank these local organisations for helping make this workshop possible.
About TacklingPovertyNZ workshop tour
In December 2015, the McGuinness Institute undertook a three-day workshop in collaboration with The
New Zealand Treasury. This workshop has led to a number of outputs, one of which includes undertaking a series of one-day workshops around New Zealand in 2016. Queenstown was the first one-day workshop where we tested our approach to see if a useful output could be achieved over one day. Over the next few months we will work on smoothing the inputs and processes. The next stop on the TacklingPovertyNZ tour is tentatively booked for Rotorua on 19 August 2016. We are currently in discussion with other regional councils including the Far North, Gisborne and Manawatu. After each workshop we will prepare a discussion paper to map local issues and to explore ideas developed by participants throughout the day. In addition to being made public, each discussion paper will be given to the Chief Economist of the New Zealand Treasury.
If you are interested in attending any of the upcoming workshops and would like to learn more about theTacklingPovertyNZ initiative, sign up to receive our bimonthly newsletter here or visit our website.