Celebrating community engagement, excellence and energy in adult community learning

The Dynamnic Community Learning Awards recognise that learning can be with, for and by more than one person. Communities, Iwi, clubs and groups can be the medium for learning as well as benefiting from learning.  This is one of the most exciting and distinctive features of Adult and Community Education.

The Awards recognise excellence, connection, and ‘giving things a go’ – the excitement that comes from ACE.  They recognise activities that achieve one or more of:

• creating a specific community learning benefit (i.e. for more than one learner)
• fostering community-based learning activities that lead to new group development or transfer benefits to existing organisations
• drawing on and 'growing' community, culturally-based knowledge
• helping: 
  • to promote active citizenship
  • to strengthen the whanau/family
  • to strengthen the neighbourhood or community
• springing from partnerships 
• between ACE providers and community organisations.

2011 Awards

Innermost Gardens Inc. (Newtown & Mt Victoria, Wellington)

Our vision statement is ‘Growing Community through hands in the Soil’. We have a core group of 10 people who meet monthly to do the planning and administrative side of the gardens and then we have an outreach group of many who come to our different gardening workshops and events.
‘Some great friendships develop here’ is one of our catch phrases and it’s true. ‘Learning from each other, working together’ has been a byline.
We discovered that there were areas we didn’t know about so we began running workshops to educate ourselves and our community on these topics.  Our gardening days are open to the whole community and we get a range of different people with varying gardening skills, including many people with few or no skills.  If someone who comes along knows about a given task they will often be asked to show a few people how to do it. Then a whole group becomes involved.
We are noticing that as we continue to be around doing what we do, more and more people hear about our gardens and come along. As a group we think that it is really important that edible gardening is accessible to people. Newtown Primary school  and Clyde Quay School have beds in the gardens.

Wellington Sexual Abuse Network (Wellington)

The Wellington Sexual Abuse Network (WSAN) is a collaboration of sexual abuse survivor agencies and an offender agency in the Wellington region Wellington Rape Crisis, Wellington Sexual Abuse HELP Foundation and WellStop.  It was founded on a joint commitment of prevention of sexual violence using a community development perspective.  Programmes include:
• Our flagship “Sex & Ethics” programme, run with young people
•  “It’s Our Business” workshops, which provide information to bar staff
•  “Clinical Workshop” for clinical therapists based on “Sex & Ethics”
•  “Ethical Bystander” training, which teaches groups with an on-the-street presence to disrupt precursor situations for unwanted sexual contact
• “Train the Trainer” education will train others to deliver to the “Sex & Ethics” framework young people around the country
•  “School Balls” package is aimed to reduce sexual violence in party and school ball environments.

Highly Commended

Manurewa Parenting Hub (Auckland)

The Manurewa Parenting Hub began in 2008 providing sessions for parents to learn more to help their children with reading and maths. The morning programmes run in four schools and employ local parents who have been a critical part of its development
Return to the Workforce is a joint venture project between the schools, WINZ and the Hub. Parents, including DHB beneficiaries, have gained skills and current work experience, children have seen their parents go out to work, increased family income.
Since opening in 2008, hundreds of parents have attended sessions at Manurewa schools and helped influence the skills that are covered.  The Hub supports parents as leaders by encouraging strong links with schools, positive parenting, promoting healthy lifestyles and building community capacity. Depending on parent feedback and requests, the Hub runs courses (budgeting, parenting, careers, fitness, CPR, craft, fire safety, fathering, sewing, baking, numeracy and literacy etc), and receives funding from MSD. Buzz Time is a weekly preschool time led by the Hub team.
“Many people had talents that lay dormant because they lacked confidence. It’s really exciting now to see these talents released.“ The group comprises a mix of ethnicities.
A group of parents have started a netball team for year three and four girls from across the community in the Saturday morning netball. “I’m proud how proactive we have become.” commented Linda Biggs, a key initiator of the Hub.
Manurewa Community Hub is supported by the Ministry of Social Development’s Family and Community Services

Upper Hutt City Library (Upper Hutt)

The mission statement of the Upper Hutt City Library is: “A community centre for living, learning and leisure”. We ensure that we maintain a wide range of material for the benefit of the entire community, especially to those groups with the greatest need and the least ability to independently access the library. Barriers to physically accessing the library services are addressed.
Programmes include:  Local history, Tea & Tales mainly for our retired population to chat about what they have been reading and Crafternoon to share knitting projects at the library.  Children participate in Sunday Family Storytime.  Friday Fables is for adults with intellectual disabilities and the Multicultural Morning Tea is for new migrants and refugees.  Our Happy Homes - Happy Pockets focuses on environmentally friendly homes.
“While our library provides much the same services and programmes as other libraries, our special quality is our devotion to our whole community regardless of their circumstances.“

Families in Cultural Transition (FiCT) programme (Wellington)

‘Families In Cultural Transition’ (FiCT) is a community based programme delivered in partnership by the Wellington Refugees as Survivors Trust and Refugee Services Aotearoa NZ. It involves 10 interactive sessions presented in the language of refugee families, and is delivered using interactive adult learning styles of delivery. Facilitator training builds capacity within their community that is empowering and fosters independence and self reliance. This will have flow on effects for other community activities. It also strengthens partnerships with other organisations in their local communities. In each module there are activities that involve reference to and information sharing about local services (e.g. CAB). In addition the two organisations partnering this programme - Refugee Services Aotearoa and Refugees as Survivors – are strengthened.