Diversity makes us stronger and Community Waikato is committed to progressing our learning as we grow our understanding of what it is to live in a bicultural country and multicultural community.

Women are a growing force in philanthropy. Research tells us that women are more likely to give, give more, and give more often. This is true at all age levels.

For many women, being a part of the Rainbow community comes with challenges. But our world is changing, and at Rainbow Hub Waikato they welcome, advocate and advance the rights of all women.

The primary objective of Shama is to be a vibrant, sustainable social service organisation that provides culturally appropriate support, advocacy, and programmes to ethnic women, their children and families, and to be a source of strength and empowerment for ethnic women of all ages.

Dress for Success Hamilton is the only provider of a free employment dressing service for women in the Waikato region.

Creating positive pathways to healing, resilience and empowerment for whaanau impacted by violence is key to breaking cycles of intergenerational violence and preventing intimate partner and family violence from occurring and reoccurring at a community level.

The YWCA of Hamilton has been empowering young women in the Waikato since 1946.

The theme of this Kumara Vine edition is ‘Empowering Women’. Women make up a significant proportion of leaders and workers in the community and social service sector and women are often the recipients of much of the work we do. This Kumara Vine edition celebrates some of the extraordinary work being done in our sector that empowers women.

Insight Endometriosis is a Charitable Trust supporting those affected by endometriosis since 1999

NCWNZ as an umbrella organisation has been working towards true gender equality in Aotearoa New Zealand for more than 125 years.

How can those working in the social service sector hold conversations about the COVID-19 vaccination with clients or service users, and people they work with?

Vaccination has been identified as one of our country’s key public health tools to offer some protection in our fight against COVID-19.

Community Waikato supports the professional development of the sector with the provision of a range of relevant subsidised workshops. The type of workshops we provide are based on requests and feedback on needs identified by people working in the sector.

Cancer inequities between indigenous Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders are unfair, intolerable, and entirely preventable. Significant inequities exist across the entire cancer control continuum, resulting in poorer survival and increased mortality for Māori.

Right now, we must come together to get wellbeing in our lives and in our workplaces.

Wellbeing, it is not only a loaded word, but currently it’s a buzzword that is getting thrown around everywhere, but not getting the infrastructure put around it that it needs to thrive. An undeniable thread that runs through all our kōrero with people is that workplace wellness isn’t working, and our resilience is depleted more than ever before.

The Ngahutoitoi Marae Trustees want to enable Ngahutoitoi to be a place where the health and wellbeing of their people and Pā are paramount.

The theme of this Kumara Vine edition is ‘Wellbeing’, and that certainly feels like the theme of the last 18 months. We have seen our community organisations work incredibly hard to meet a growing community need. We have seen teams change the way they work with those they support.

The NZ Navigator Trust exists to create free or low cost, accessible, digital tools to assist community organisations in New Zealand to grow and thrive. They have gathered together their growing portfolio of online tools, all of which are designed specifically for community groups and organisations to use to enhance and support the work they do.

As gateways to knowledge and culture, libraries play an important role in society, helping to build healthy communities. Today’s libraries offer books, activities, community spaces, and much more. Digital inclusion and community recovery initiatives are happening in some of the libraries around the region. Develop your computer skills through one of these digital initiatives.

During last year’s lockdown, a huge collaborative effort from several Hamilton-based community service providers, volunteers and funders means that Hamilton residents can now access social service support during COVID-19 at their fingertips thanks to a pioneering community response website ‘heretohelpu.nz‘.