The back story of the Ka Mau Te Wero Charitable Trust, based in Glen Innes, Auckland, began in the late 1990s. Glen Innes is a diverse urban community made up of about 12,000 people - more than half of whom are under 25. The main ethnicities are of the Pacific Island nations.

Glen Innes, or "GI" to locals, has been tainted by having the highest ‘10' rating for relative social deprivation by the government. For many years, the high Crown expenditure on social services and other interventions made in the area have not seen the expected outcomes - a result that most community workers and local people know has a great deal to do with the lack of meaningful engagement with and by the people in the GI community.

In the late 90s, however, this began to change perceptibly.

In 2001, Auckland City Council successfully nominated GI among the seven national pilot sites chosen via the Ministry of Social Development's new Stronger Communities Action Fund. The purposes of the SCAF strategy was to test the concept of "devolved community decision-making", encouraging communities to identify local solutions to important issues, and evaluating the process and outcomes. The Ka Mau Te Wero project was funded until the middle of 2006, at which stage the project opted to become a charitable trust in order to continue its community development work in GI.

The strengths of the Trust have been in:

• Encouraging the community to identify its needs and priorities
• Encouraging collaboration amongst like-minded individuals and groups in order to harness strength in numbers
• Encouraging connection, in the knowledge that people who are more connected with the people and issues around them are happier and healthier
• Finding innovative solutions for local issues
• Exploring the best ways to legitimise, validate and share the wonderful reserves of local knowledge and know-how

The Trust has undertaken major initiatives in recent years, of which two in particular stand out: The 2004 Glen Innes Visioning project and the 2005 Glen Innes Random Household Survey. The random household survey was a brilliant example of community engagement in action. 40 local people were engaged and trained to conduct a house-to-house survey of 202 households in GI. In addition, the surveyors participated in all phases of the project from the design of the questionnaire, the interviews, data entry, data analyses and community presentations of the results.

The survey allowed the Glen Innes community to identify the following:

• The community wants to be involved in community development and initiatives in GI
• Social connectedness and valuing community diversity are very important priorities
• Some ongoing challenges are reversing the consequences of negative attitudes, poverty, alcohol and drug-related harm and feelings of insecurity
• If the community ‘won the lotto' or was given the resources to improve the GI community and its wellbeing, the majority of the community respondents reported that they would spend the resources/money on the development and training of its young people. The youth are seen by the community as being part of both the problem and the solution.

From the findings of the community participatory action research projects, KMTW drafted its strategies and its annual plans so the trust and the community can work together to address their priorities. As a result, there are a number of past, current and future projects that focus on youth development and training controlled by the community and driven to build capacities, promote feelings of connectedness, and to cultivate positive attitudes.

Ka Mau Te Wero's work shows the power of the community's active participation in identifying real issues, taking ownership of them and finding the innovative solutions that will make sustainable and tangible differences.

Aimee Whitcroft

September 2009