Rotary GSE to New Zealand, 2008

Already Learning a Lot! Sep 18, 2008

Kia Ora (Welcome in Maori, which is the local indigenous language) Happy Birthday Sharon (yesterday)! We celebrated last night by giving a Rotary Presentation to the Harbour City Wellington group. This was our second presentation this week, and so far we have had really great feedback. The night before we presented to the Karori Rotary Club, which are our hosts for the week. We heard from several people that our presentation was the best they have ever heard from a GSE team. After many months of practice, we were glad to hear this. It is so wonderful to have individuals from the communities here have a strong interest in family violence. The awareness of family violence among communty members is exceptional. Each of us is staying with a family in the area, which has provided great opportunities to get an insight into the culture. So far we have learned that tea, cookies and wine are often offered to guests, which we do not mind at all. On Tuesday we met at the Families Commission for a briefing with the Rotarians about our first two weeks here in Wellington. Wednesday, we started our program. We first visited with the Campaign Director at the Families Commission, and then moved on to the New Zealand police to learn about their policies around family violence and their child abuse teams. The country of New Zealand has one police system, versus separate municipality forces as in the U.S. Thus far, we have noticed that there are many similarities in our systems, but also many things that New Zealand is doing in Family Violence that we could implement, as well as many things that we are doing in the U.S. that we are excited to share with the New Zealand team in April. Last night we were able to meet the team leader coming to the U.S. in April, and we were given the task of trying to recruit team members while we are out and about. On the non-vocational side of things, we will be visiting the national museum today and enjoying ten-pin bowling tomorrow evening, as well as a potluck to celebrate Ginger's birthday, as well as her host's birthday. We will also tour the Parliment and the zoo tomorrow and Saturday we plan to hike, visit a wildlife preserve and attend an orchestra performance downtown. New Zealandisms for the day: rubbish stump: landfill not for wrong: not far off to dob: rat someone out bush: forest or woods

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