Volunteer!

I'm a bit late in mentioning this, but this week is Volunteer Week in New Zealand.

New Zealand is a leading nation in contribution made by volunteers. A 2008 study of the New Zealand non-profit sector estimated that volunteers make up 67% of the non-profit workforce. This is equal to 133,799 paid positions, a higher proportion than in any of the other forty world countries participating in the research project on volunteering.

Volunteer rates between different ethnic groups in the country don't differ greatly:

34.8% of Pacific people
34.5% of Pakeha
34% non NZ-born Europeans
33.4% Asians
33.2% Maori.

More women volunteer than men, but in the retirement age groups, men do more unpaid work outside the home than women.

Most volunteers are in the 30-49 age group but young people are active as volunteers. The average young person aged between 12 and 24 does over 708 hours of unpaid work outside the home a year, with young Maori giving significantly more of their time in unpaid roles than other young people.

Volunteers keep people safe by being unpaid fire fighters, St John ambulance officers, Red Cross volunteers, community patrollers, surf lifesavers, coastguards and search and rescue volunteers.

Over 820,000 people do volunteer work in sports compared to 41,000 who get paid.

These are just a few stats from Volunteering New Zealand and Office for Community and Voluntary Sector.

Young New Zealand

Throughout New Zealand, there are Presbyterian churches, elders and ministers who focus much of their time on ways to be in touch with the young people around them. Some churches are more successful than others, often because the right kind of person is in the role of youth leader, or because there is a good team of people reaching out to young people.

Having information about young people is one way in which to improve your ability to work with them. This may be information that's primarily local, or it may be anecdotal or word of mouth.

The Ministry of Youth Development has recently improved their website and one of the pages contains youth statistics for New Zealand. Statistics may not be everyone's cup of tea (particularly not youth leaders at the coal face) but they can give interesting overviews of an area or of trends in relation to a particular subject.

As an example: In the 2006 Census,
19.5 percent of young people aged 12 to 24 identified as Mäori,
9.3 percent as Pacific,
13.1 percent Asian
and 1.2 percent as Other ethnicities.
These figures are all significantly higher than the proportion of the total population that identifies with each of these ethnic groups. In other words each of these people groups has more young people than old. The only exception are the Europeans.

You can see a graph showing these stats more clearly on the web, and further down the page a table comparing where the different ethnicities predominate.

In another section, the wellbeing of young New Zealanders is discussed.

Take a few minutes to check the site out. It may prove more valuable than you'd expect.

When the trees bend in the forest, there is always a reason

Two reports are now available online regarding the mental health of Pasifika people living in New Zealand. The first reports on a mental health study over the period 2003/4, so no doubt there have been some changes since the study was done.

The second has a particular focus on the first dedicated Pacific child, adolescent and family mental health service in Porirua, which was established in 2005

Exploration of Pacific perspectives of Pacific models of mental health service delivery in New Zealand, by T. Suaalli-Sauni and others.
This report was first published this year in the Pacific Health Dialog, volume 15, number 1, and summarizes the 2004 study, 'Pacific Models of Mental Health Service Delivery in New Zealand' which looked at concerns about the mental health of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand, and the way in which the various Pacific Island groups are not being well catered for in the general health system. There is discussion of the ways in which mental health has been dealt with traditionally, and how to a degree this still suits the older generation. However, it is not longer ‘a neat fit’ for the younger people.
Another issue is the fact of very different cultural viewpoints amongst the range of Pacific Islanders living in the country. One model will not suit all. There has already been a good deal of work done to bring traditional models together with contemporary viewpoints, and the study acknowledges the part Christianity plays in the lives of Pacific Island people.

Development of a child, adolescent and family mental health service for Pacific young people in Aotearoa/New Zealand, by Allister Bush and others.
While there is a mixed PI population in the Porirua area, the report tends to focus on the Samoan people and their approaches to children and family in the mental health context. This perhaps gives it a more specialised focus than it might otherwise have, but it also helps to show that each Island group needs to be addressed in a different way. This report has a number of 'stories' of different children and families that have been helped by the service.

Neither of these reports is long, but each of them gives considerable insight into the cultural needs of people groups that are now an established part of New Zealand's multicultural makeup. And there are many insights into the way in which we 'palangi' need to be aware of Pasifika traditions, spirituality and behaviours.

Link to the photo's original site