Victory Village Forum: Nelson

I am so thrilled to be here, in heartland Nelson, within the warmth of Te Tau Ihu.

And I want to thank the Forum Steering Group – Victory Village, Inspiring Communities and the Families Commission – for making this day possible.

It is wonderful to see you all, and I want to particularly acknowledge the mana whenua; Carl Davidson, the Chief Families Commissioner; my fellow member of parliament, Hon Maryan Street; my former Parliamentary colleague Judy Turner, and all of those here today from my home town of Whanganui!

Victory Village is a community overflowing with people wearing multiple hats; a community that has come together to create the school and the community centre as the junction point of an enormous network of activities.

It is precisely this richness; this bringing together of multiple strands of community life that has made Victory Village the hub of the wider Victory community, and is the reason why this place was named the Community of the Year in 2010.

As the nation has borne the brunt of snow storms, wild winds and tornados, the Victory Village Forum offers us a welcome respite.

This Forum creates a haven of enterprise, for the bringing together of so many composite components to our communities – including environmental protection, recreation, arts and culture, education, health and wellbeing, local government, service providers, non-governmental organizations and community leaders in the broadest sense of the word.

We have people here today who have travelled from as far afield as Tamaki Makaurau and Rakiura and right throughought the motu – all of you inspired and enthused by the power of family-centred; community development approaches, such as at Victory Village.

Victory. It is a wonderful word to wrap your lips around. In that one word is conveyed so much – success, triumph over adversity, however long and hard the road may be. A victory is always decisive, spectacular, the culmination of collective or individual pursuit, working for the purposes of a agreed goal.

I like the concept of victory described by Herbert Kaufman:

“Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory”.

And I think that is what we are experiencing here. The Victory Village Partnership is an absolute statement of courage having coached ambition. This is a school which has ambitions for its community which has shown courage in recreating its school.

People want to live here; they are described as ‘energised and engaged’. They live up to their values – that ‘everyone matters’; and that the role of a school is to enable a community to educate its children’.

I want to commend the Families Commission for their research report called Paths of Victory. This is a significant report which describes a formula for sustainable positive growth – and that is when changes are made for and by the community itself. The report is a fantastic resource which shares the story of Victory in a way which can’t help but inspire other communities and I guess that is why the rest of us come here.
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And I want to read a small section from that report which sums up the commitment of the Village to family-centred practice.

“Principles of professionalism and leadership were strongly informed by collective attributes. Collective responsibility for child and family wellbeing existed within professional boundaries and across them…..

There was an ethic of doing more and sweating the small stuff that might actually be connected to wider issues or opportunities. Leadership attributes of note were boldness, risk-taking, creativity and seeing connections across professional disciplines and organisations”.

I really love the sense that we get of being intentional about an approach which is family-centred and community led. It has all the hallmarks of Whanau Ora – the opportunity for whanau to collectively use their strengths – and for social service delivery to undergo a fairly radical transformation in order to focus on the strengths of whanau, rather than focussing on all their weaknesses.

It also reminds me of a conversation we had within our own whanau, just in the last fortnight.

One night I received a call from my son, Pahia, which went like this.

“Mum, do you know who would have changed the booking for our boy to go into hospital for his knee surgery?”

I replied, “Oh that would be me son”.

Pause on the phone. And then the inevitable, “Why?”

“Well - Pakaitore (that’s our mokopuna) – has the kapa haka regionals on that day, and we couldn’t let him miss out on that”. In my mind it was perfectly clear – wellbeing is not just about the physical state of health – it is also about our spiritual, cultural, social wellbeing.

Delaying the surgery a week was a small price to pay for the once-of-a-lifetime opportunity for our mokopuna to be experiencing the ihi, the wehi, the wana of kapa haka.

This is a mokopuna that has spent his life excelling on many sports fields but the regionals was the very first time on the kapa haka stage, and I decided nothing but nothing would get in the way of that.

For my son I’d have to say, he knows better than to sweat the small stuff. He learnt long ago that in our house, the phrase “it’s none of your business” is simply unuttered. As I’ve explained to all my kids over the years, their business is absolutely my business; I make it my business to be involved in all the multiple and intricate pathways all of our children and mokopuna take.

This to me is part of the key to success in Whanau Ora; it is the key to success in community development; and I’m sure if I was to drill down very far into any of the communities represented here today, we’d find the same.

Here in Nelson, Whakatu Marae is inspired by a mission statement that captures the essence of Whanau Ora perfectly.

“Whakamanatia te tapu, te ihi, te wehi o te whanau” – to address, restore and enhance the mana and tapu of the whanau.

The significance will not be lost on anyone, that today, when the Government’s Green Paper is being launched, inspired by the vision: that every child thrives, belongs, achieves – that we have a community here at Victory that has been working in this way for the last decade.

For children to thrive, belong, and achieve they need to be supported by caring committed families – who in turn are supported by caring committed communities.

It is vital that we work together to establish trusting relationships –it may be about sweating the small stuff – learning how to work together so that we can focus our efforts on achieving benefits for communities, iwi, hapu and whanau.

Last month, Inspiring Communities hosted Mark Cabaj, from an Institute for Community Engagement in Canada.
Amongst other things Mark talked about communities collaboratively working together to solve social issues – many of which are complex and cannot be solved by formulaic solutions. It is about learning by doing – increasing the opportunity for our communities to be self-determining.

That has been a very clear priority for me as Minister of the Community and Voluntary Sector portfolio – that we build on communities strengths; we develop leaders and leadership; and we invest in system change, bringing together all the partners to meet the community’s potential to focus on what is important for their families.

To this end, the Department is trialling a new approach, working with a number of communities with multiple needs; driven by the vision of community empowerment and self-determination. The overall approach is designed to be flexible –funding is for a three to four year focus, recognising that community led development takes time and can be resource intensive.

But as you all know from wanting to be here today community development; whanau wellbeing is well worth the work.

In just a few days time, the Government and Communities of Aotearoa New Zealand will begin signing the Kia Tutahi Standing together Relationship Accord which will place some key principles at the centre of community-government relationships.

There will be an opportunity for communities to sign up to this Accord in the regions as well as on line.

But the biggest challenge for us all will be to each own the Accord and breathe life into it, through the relationships we each have.

This will require commitment and perseverance.

Perseverance is a factor synonymous with the success of Victory.

Today we are here to celebrate and be inspired by the story of Victory – a community which has persevered over the last ten years of steady progress, driven by community collaboration through which this village has developed into the amazing community it is today. This community has certainly earnt its name, Victory Village.

I congratulate everyone involved – whether here at Victory or in your own communities at home – for daring to want something better; to know the power of your own potential.

And I wish you all a wonderful forum to be inspired; to be bold and share your successes and your challenges, as providing you all with even more reason to believe in whanau-focused, community led development.