Karamea is coming to the end of our five year Community-led Development Partnership (CLDP) with Te Tari Taiwhenua | the Department of Internal Affairs, and it's time to reflect on what happened. We were the first community in the South Island to enter into this experimental partnership with the government based on trusting community leadership and local knowledge. The CLDP takes on five new communities each year, each for five years, and gives them access to a pot of money for funding community-led initiatives aligning with the CLD principles, along with the support of a Community Operations worker.
Did you know that over the past five years local volunteer groups have been granted over $2Million worth of funding for community-led projects in Karamea(!!), some highlights of this mahi include:
- Funding Karamea Youth Club for 3.5 years
- Developing the Clean Streams Nursery
- Installing the bronze Te Maia and Hōkioi sculpture
- Extending the new school/community Hall and kitting it out for everyone
- Upgrading the walking tracks in the Ōpārara Basin
- Upgrading the Library and Museum buildings
- Rewilding, signage, picnic table and flood mitigation at the Ōpārara Reserve to create a Source to Sea Sanctuary
- Developing the Rata Reserve
- Developing Karamea Pop Up Gallery
- Resourcing a CLDP Partnership Manager for support and navigation (that’s me, Liz Kerslake)
Money can’t buy everything; we’ve also had heaps of pot luck dinners, working bees, Saturday Markets, coffee mornings, soccer matches, Winter School workshops, beach fires, abundance swaps, radio shows, fundraising events, Matariki celebrations, and hearty chats around kitchen tables. There is no doubt we are a resilient community with some big ideas!
We’d like to know how the CLDP has touched your life. Maybe you’ve enjoyed planting trees at a working bee, rolled your sleeves up and led a project, got stuck in on a dreaded committee, or had a neat Youth Club experience….
We want to hear YOUR STORIES!
How have community-led projects and events shown up in your life over the past 5 years?
We’d love you to tell us about your experiences.
Please take a few minutes out of your day to consider how you engage with Karamea community, and share your experiences.
What’s working? What didn’t work? What community-led projects or events do you hope will continue or develop in the future?
Here's a link for sharing your experience - you can choose to remain anonymous if you wish.
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complete the comment from below
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you can email any comments short or tall to karameacommunity@gmail.com
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Get in touch for a call or cuppa and you can share kanohi ki te kanohi | face to face, I’m all ears - 020 4003 1983
For more information about community goings on check out the updated Karamea Community Plan at Karamea.nz or there’s a hard copy at the Info Centre… and if you haven’t already, check out our wee Community-led development in Karamea Youtube video featuring some familiar faces.
Now the evaluation bit’s out of the way I can tell you about the CELEBRATION!
Save the date - SATURDAY 1ST OCTOBER will be an afternoon of celebration for everyone in the community to enjoy, to mark the milestone of five years of community-led development in action. It’s important to honour our collective achievements, and to come together for fun, especially in difficult times. In the spirit of what we are celebrating it will be a community-led affair, so please get in touch if you would like to contribute to the event in any way… more info coming soon!
Whilst September 24th marks the formal end of the CLD Partnership, we’re not going anywhere and our community-led mahi will continue to shape the development of Karamea; what we focus on flourishes.
Thank you to everyone who calls themselves part of this diverse and growing community, especially to our thriving decentralised volunteer army, you know who you are, however you give.
Thanks also go to Clive Hellyar for initiating the whole Community-led Development Partnership back in 2017, and to the volunteers of Karamea Community Inc for turning up to all of those meetings on cold dark evenings and tirelessly crunching through task after task.
