Podcast – Youth suicide

Christchurch City Libraries blog hosts a series of regular podcasts from New Zealand’s only specialist human rights radio show Speak up – Kōrerotia. This show is created by Sally Carlton.

The latest episode deals with youth suicide. New Zealand has high rates of youth suicide, especially among Māori and Pasifika populations.

• Part I: Sir Peter Gluckman (Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor)
  Youth suicide statistics in NZ and elsewhere; possible reasons; the importance of providing supportive contexts for young people.
• Parts II and III: Jackie Burrows and Tanith Petersen (He Waka Tapu) and Wesley Mauafu (PYLAT – Pacific Youth Leadership and Transformation). Possible reasons; situation among different ethnic groups; situation in post-earthquake Christchurch and Elements for youth suicide prevention initiatives – sport, music, support, etc.

Transcript of the audio

Find out more

• Youth Suicide in New Zealand: a Discussion Paper [pdf] (from The Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Officer)
• Bros for Change
• Find titles about suicidal behaviour in youth, New Zealand
• Find titles about suicide prevention in New Zealand
• Find articles about youth suicide in New Zealand (access with your library card & password / PIN)

 

More about Speak up – Kōrerotia

• Speak up – Kōrerotia on Facebook
• Contact the host of the show via speakupkorerotia@gmail.com.

The show is also available on the following platforms:

• Plains FM website
• SoundCloud
• iTunes

Podcast – Making a difference

Christchurch City Libraries blog hosts a series of regular podcasts from specialist human rights radio show Speak up – Kōrerotia. This show is created by Sally Carlton.

What motivates people to ‘make a difference’ – and what actually do we mean by the phrase?
Guests Billy O’Steen (University of Canterbury), Sarah Campagnolo (Volunteering Canterbury and Gap Filler), Teoti Jardine (Volunteering Canterbury and Avon-Otakaro Network) and Jason Pemberton (Student Volunteer Army and Social Enterprise World Forum) debate this fascinating – and somewhat elusive – question, drawing on their huge expertise in the volunteering sector.

• Part I: Defining ‘making a difference’ – Is it the same as volunteering? Activism? etc.
• Part II: How can we measure ‘making a difference’? What are the shortfalls of relying on statistics? Ethnicity and volunteering
• Part III: Demographics and volunteering; guests’ key learnings; encouragement for people to being ‘making a difference’

 

Transcript – Making a difference

Find out more in our collection

• Find titles on Voluntarism
• Find titles on Helping Behaviour
• Find titles on Nonprofit Organisations
• Find articles about Volunteering (access with your library card & password / PIN)

        

More about Speak up – Kōrerotia

• Speak up – Kōrerotia on Facebook
• Contact the host of the show via speakupkorerotia@gmail.com.

The show is also available on the following platforms:

• Plains FM website
• SoundCloud
• iTunes

World Refugee Day – 20 June

World Refugee Day is 20th June.

“I’ve met so many who have lost so much. But they never lose their dreams for their children or their desire to better our world. They ask for little in return – only our support in their time of greatest need”

UN Secretary-General, António Guterres

Find fiction and non-fiction about refugees in our collection.

Refugee organisations

Christchurch refugee services listed in CINCH, Community Information Christchurch.

Red Cross Refugee Services helps empower people from refugee backgrounds to achieve their goals and contribute to their new home in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Christchurch Resettlement Services exists to support people from refugee and migrant backgrounds living in Christchurch to settle successfully in New Zealand by providing a range of professional services that build on strengths to promote wellbeing and resilience.

Happy 10th birthday, Upper Riccarton Library

Upper Riccarton Community and School Library – Te Kete Wānanga o Pūtaringamotu – is ten years old. It’s a special place, bringing together the locals with Riccarton High School and Christchurch City Libraries.

Kia ora Upper Riccarton staff and customers! Here are some pics from ten years of being at the heart of the community.

Exquisite dough sculpture at the Chinese Lunar New Year festivities at Upper Riccarton Library, 21 February 2015. Flickr 1278.JPG

Young dancers perform in the Chinese Lunar New Year festivities at Upper Riccarton Library, 21 February 2015. Flickr 20150221_122125.JPG

Chinese calligraphy banner – Chinese Lunar New Year festivities at Upper Riccarton Library, 21 February 2015. Flickr P1040966.JPG

Takumi Japanese drummers perform in the Chinese Lunar New Year festivities at Upper Riccarton Library, 21 February 2015. Flickr P1040930.JPG

Yarnbombing. Flickr CCL-2013 -03-13-IMG_0480

Zombie Day at Upper Riccarton Library. Flickr CCL-2013-01-10-P1030484

Official Opening & Gala: Saturday 25 February 2006; first day – Monday 23 January 2006. Flickr 2006DSC01646

• Upper Riccarton photos on Flickr
• Opening Day Gallery: photographs from our first day – Monday 23 January 2006
• Construction photos

Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre opening Saturday 28 November!!!

Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre is opening on Saturday 28 November 2015 at 341 Halswell Road. There is a rather splendid and varied programme of events to celebrate its opening week.

Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre includes a library, meeting rooms, a customer service desk, a 5,000 square metre outdoor area with a swimming pool.

Saturday 28 November: Official Opening of Te Hapua: Halswell Centre

Join Deputy Mayor Vicki Buck, Mana Whenua and Community Board members in officially opening the facility between 10 and 11 am.  You are then invited to be amongst the first to walk through Te Hapua: Halswell Centre. Find out more.

Sunday 29 November: Family Day

Book now for crafts

A day of activities designed for families to discover, connect and play together between 10.30 am and 2pm. Book now for crafting sessions – make a mermaid, rowing boat, or jellyfish. Join Streets and MORE FM for a fun Summer Pool Party between 12 pm and 2 pm. Find out more.

Monday 30 November: Older Persons Day

A day of activities designed to be enjoyed by our senior community between 10.30 am to 1.30 pm. Find out more.

Tuesday 1 December: Facility Tours

Opportunities to walk through the entire facility of Te Hapua: Halswell Centre. Architectural tour, grounds tour, and guided tours. Find out more.

Wednesday 2 December: Facility Tours

Opportunities to walk through the entire facility of Te Hapua: Halswell Centre.  Architectural tour, grounds tour, and guided tours. Find out more.

Thursday 3 December: Heritage Day

A day filled with events and activities celebrating local history. Find out more.

Join us for the Halswell Project Exhibition Opening, a documentary photography project on the wider Halswell area produced by University of Canterbury, School of Fine Arts students.  The opening will take place between 6 and 7pm.

Friday 4 December: Halswell Youth Evening

A fun-filled programme designed for the awesome young people in Halswell! Activities start at 4pm and include Zumba classes, art displays, Minecraft, 3D printing demonstrations, music and a fun pool party. Find out more.

Saturday 5 December: Multicultural Day

A family-friendly day filled with activities and events celebrating the diversity
of our community. Find out more.

Go to our page about Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre to learn more about it. We’ve also got a bunch of photos of it being built. I’m quite a fan of the fab seats – perfect places to park yourself with a book.

Neighbourhood Week 2015

Neighbourhood Week is happening again this year from Friday 23 October to Sunday 1 November, and it is a fantastic opportunity to bring people together, build stronger communities and get to know those around you. It is also a perfect excuse for a party!

In this day and age it is a bit hard to keep track of the people around you. We all work or have too many commitments and, before you know it, you are surrounded by strangers! This is the perfect time to go and meet your neighbours without them thinking you are a bit strange. 😉

There are many ways you can participate, from organising a street party to hosting a dinner or a sports day to just going and introducing yourself to your neighbours.

There are heaps of tips and ideas on the Neighbourhood Week page, from how to organise a party to how to ask for a grant for one (although applications for this year have closed, it’s never too early to start planning for next year) and you can even print invitations for your event.

We also have some wonderful books at Christchurch City Libraries that will give you ideas. You can

• make fantastic street party food
• organise a game day or night for old and young
• or even polish your event planning skills

You can also find out about what’s happening in your library by browsing our events calendar. Chances are you’ll meet people that live in your area and that have similar interests to you… win win!

Honey, Hives and Hierarchy

I don’t believe I have ever read a fantasy book before, science fiction sure, but not fantasy.  After a long reading hiatus, I was perusing a list of books nominated for various recent awards to kick-start me into reading again.

I must confess it was the cover of The Bees by Laline Paull that hooked me in – embossed and golden. Only when I started reading did I notice ‘fantasy’ on the spine. I always think about witches, dragons and ‘far away lands’ when I think fantasy, so a book about a plucky and rather magical bee and the hive she lives in didn’t fit the narrow idea I had of the genre.

The book is a debut novel for Laline Paull, a playwright and screenwriter, and was shortlisted for the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, with judges calling it “an Animal Farm for the 21st century”.

We meet Flora 717 at her birth, fighting her way out of her hive cell.  She is of the worker class, destined to clean and tidy after others for her short life. But this wee worker is different. She speaks, unlike others of her class, and she has an intelligence that soon sees her crossing antennae with those in the hive of higher classes. As the seasons progress, changes in the hive bring on new challenges to both Flora and the hive.

As Flora’s tongue unrolled toward the head of nectar, tiny particles of orange pollen tingled against her fur. The taste of the nectar was so bright and the energy release so sudden that she almost fell off the flower head.

I didn’t think I’d find myself rooting for a humble bee, but I was willing her on to achieve, find joy, survive the horrors of wasp attack, disease and resentment from those who believed she was getting above her station.

Well written, tense in places and tender in others, it’s a great read. I recommend you add it to your list. Oh and it gave my husband and me an excuse to have silly pun duels. “Honey, I’m hiving trouble bee-lieving you.” “I shall wax lyrical.”

 

Culture Galore – Just Glorious

UPDATE: Culture Galore has been cancelled. A Community Recreation Advisor reports the park is too sodden to allow vehicle access and vehicles could also cause major damage to the fields which are used for soccer over the winter.

Culture Galore is almost here again, with the annual festival being held on Saturday March 8, 12-4pm. I love this free Christchurch City Council event. It has grown over the years from a few food stalls to a great afternoon out for the family.

It’s a wonderful bringing together of the large variety of cultural groups in our fair city, and you can listen to music, watch dances from over twenty groups and eat tasty food from around the world. There are also crafts and other items to buy from around the globe.

There are also workshops throughout the afternoon, where you can learn anything from dancing from Macedonia, TaiChi and Morris Dancing – bells and hankies  included. These photographs of past Culture Galore events from our Flickr will give you more than a taste of what could be on offer.

I also love that is a suburban event, nestled in Ray Blank Park, the well ‘treed’ Ilam park on Maidstone Road. Most of the year it’s home to dog walkers, soccer teams and a good many cricket games (I know, I’ve watched a few), but for an afternoon in March it explodes with the colours, sights and sounds and smells of the United Nations.

As an aside, and shameless plug, be there before 12.40pm, and you’ll also get to see a great world music choir, Women in Harmony perform some songs on the stage, and there will be at least two Christchurch City Librarians in amongst the group – I wonder if you will be able to pick them? No, we won’t be wearing a twinset and pearls!

Hurrah for volunteers!

Today is International Volunteer Day, which is an annual event dedicated to celebrating and recognising all types of volunteers around the world.

Volunteering is a wonderful way to experience new challenges, develop new skills and get involved in the community. Our web page provides all sorts of information about volunteering in and around Christchurch.

Volunteering in Canterbury came into the spotlight after the earthquakes when organisations such as the Student Volunteer Army, the Farmy Army and many others were involved in the massive clean-up effort. These contributions really showed how much can be achieved when people come together with a common purpose to benefit the community.

The volunteering spirit has endured post-quakes with initiatives like Greening the Rubble and Gap Filler, amongst others, actively using volunteers in the quest to fill empty sites before permanent redevelopment.

My own experiences of volunteering helped me to discover if the career path I wanted to go down was right for me. I wanted to get into the museum sector and was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to help out at my local museum. I was able to find out about this type of job in a very hands on way and meet people who could tell me more. This experience initially led to a part time job and helped me get onto a Museum Studies course.

So, whether you have a little time or a lot of time have think about volunteering as you never know where it will lead you – and if you know a volunteer say a big thank you to them today.

Have a go mate

“Have a go” is such a Kiwi expression. It speaks of generosity – offering to share an opportunity, confidence that any person has the right to try and enjoy a pursuit. It harks back to more equitable times when people had more freedom to have a go – access to beaches, rivers and the countryside was not so bounded by ownership and rules and people shared their knowledge of different skills.

During the week of 28 September to 6 October in Lyttelton there will be a generous sharing of skills and knowledge and a cheerful invitation to “Have a go” at the Lyttelton Harbour kura – festival of learning programme. On Saturday 28 there will be a drumathon, flax weaving, organic vege garden advice, tap dancing, blues dancing, Maori performing arts, drawing and much more.

Sunday seems to have a strong foodie theme – more garden advice, butchery, bread and tortilla making and sausage making. As well there is stilt walking and mandala creating. Monday has felted brooch making, more foodie stuff for kids and adults and so it goes on through the week. Ukelele jams, ecology field trips, becoming a self-sufficent library user, improvisation, reclaiming broken jewellery into new wearable pieces, superhero singing – phew.

The weekend of the 5 and 6 October rounds off with more workshops, a book fair, body percussion, cheesemaking, foraging and upcycling frocks. Some events are free and some have fees to cover ingredients and materials.

Just so many fun things to have a go at.