On any given day, Wesley House in Cannons Creek is a hive of activity even before the sun rises. There, visitors can participate in various programs, like the fruit and veggie co-op, where community members play a vital role in preparing and distributing food. Community members engage in activities such as composting, seedling groups, and volunteering at the food bank. The house also serves as a hub for meetings, hosting financial literacy courses and savings pool meetings.
Since the 1990s, Wesley Community Action has collaborated with communities in the Porirua and Hutt regions, recognising that these communities should take the lead in addressing the issues that matter to them. In 2020, with support from The Todd Foundation, Te Hiko was established as a Centre for Community Innovation. The core philosophy of Te Hiko is to ignite local community economic systems that genuinely value what enhances people's lives.
Te Hiko Innovation Lead Kena Duignan says their approach emphasises that local people should be in control of navigating challenges and finding community-led solutions to food security, affordable housing for intergenerational communities, and community wealth building.
"Grassroots communities are incredibly innovative and instead of coming in and delivering services to people, we support their efforts to respond and innovate solutions themselves."
"So much work in this space is just doing things to people without their input. Our aim is to support people and their communities who are facing challenges to respond in ways that promote healing for both systems and people. We want to work in positive ways that do the healing as well as the responding."
There's so many community meetings happening at Te Hiko that the house seems like it never rests. Locals lead the long-running financial literacy courses, and participants come together with others in similar situations to learn new solutions and support one another.
An example of what can happen when people are supported to build change that works for them is the success of the Porirua Wealth Pool. Community members contribute money into a shared pool, which takes the stress out of saving and helps members avoid high-interest loans. Over the past six years, members have collectively contributed $291,200 and loaned out just over $96,000.
“The pool is founded on trust - it is essential that members know each other, and that it is only open to a small group of people – Te Hiko supports the facilitation and community building aspects of this group so all the members are supported to connect and feel confident to speak openly about worries or stresses”, says Kena.
Additionally, projects like Ngahere Korowai focus on reforestation efforts in Porirua East after local men decided the community deserve to see the bare hills transformed. There are community housing projects underway in Naenae. The NZ P-Pull initiative supports families affected by methamphetamine, providing a space for community discussions and well-being courses.
The staff and community at Te Hiko regularly come together to reflect on these projects and produce snapshot reports on what they've learned that can be used to inform initiatives in other regions.
Kena says, "The funding from The Todd Foundation gives our community the freedom to explore ideas and iterate on them without feeling stuck by a lack of confidence and experience. They also aren’t getting bogged down by administrative tasks that can use up valuable time for grassroots communities."
