Tag Archives: Sustainability

Daniel Kinne – the fair trader

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Daniel Fair Trade FortnightDaniel Kinne is a coffee farmer from the highlands of Papua New Guinea. He is also a founding member and the chairman, of the Highland Organic Agricultural Cooperative (HOAC) which includes 2600 farmers.

He is here to celebrate Fair Trade Fortnight, through and to share his stories on the impact we have on communities like his, when we buy Fair trade.

But what fascinates me, is that this man manages to get the 2600 farmers of this collective to make a decision together on how to spend the premiums ($ from their sales) for their community . Is he learning from us or are we learning from him?

 

Daniels coffee can be drunk at Kokako, available at Common Sense Organics and Esquires.

Wellington was the first Fair Trade City in New Zealand.

In 2013 New Zealanders spent $69.3 Million dollars on Fair Trade goods.

 

James Coyle – Newtown Festival recycling heroes

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Newtown Festival Frecycling.

is upping it’s game again, not only by being NZ’s biggest and best (biased yes) street festival, but also in it’s recycling front with an unprecedented 12 recycling stations! They want to show Wellington that they can put on a huge party, without sending a mountain of waste to landfill.

In this interview Newtown Festival programe coordinator, James Coyle talks to  about how they are going to do it, why this is good for the event and how we can all help.

You can sign up here: 

Gina Rembe – smart energy

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Gina RembeIt is so exciting to meet bright young Wellington women such as , who is one of the crew leading the 2nd round of the Smart Energy Challenge, that just kicked off last week. The project won a award for last years efforts, in which one of the three successful projects saw crowd fund PV panels onto the Aro Valley Community Hall as part of these citizen led solutions for climate change.

To find out more about how to be involved in the challenge, what makes Gina so motivated and pretty keen on Wellington listen in. But if you’ve got any budding ideas get them in by Feb15th.

more info here http://www.smartenergychallenge.org.nz/

 

 

The Sew Good Cooperative Mums – a common unity

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SewGood_CUP_20141128_6040These are the Mum’s from The Sew Good Cooperative at Epuni School in Lower Hutt. Of all the stories has done, this one is possibly the most powerful, Why? Because their story is a community led response to the economic and social pressures facing a huge percentage of our country. These women are doing it for themselves.

After founder Julia Milne has taken a few awards this year as the Overall Winner at the Wellington Airport Community Awards and the Sustainable Champion at the NZI Sustainable Business Awards for her work and vision on the project, we thought we’d go and have a chat with the Mums to see what the best things about the year were for them…..and it wasn’t what we thought.

If you think these women were doing an awesome thing please vote here as they are in the running for a grant that will really help their Koha Kitchen come to life.Closes Dec 11 so please do it today. It takes two clicks.

http://mcfgrantsvoting.com.au/

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Thanks to

 

Oliver Vetter – love your coast

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Oliver_Sus_Coast_lines

have had a massive impact on New Zealand beaches by educating nearly 110 000 of us about caring for our coasts, as well us getting 35 000 of us to pick up over 1,000,000 million litres of rubbish. Now Welly has our own Sustainable Coastlines representative, a big welcome to Oliver Vetter, who is already very busy leading the  campaign through schools, a harbour dive clean up this Saturday and a beach clean up at Makara next Saturday.

In this interview Oliver shares his take on why we have so much rubbish on our beaches, how you can start your own beach clean up through Sustainable Coastlines and even though he has alot of dirty work to do,why  he loves his job.

http://www.loveyourcoast.org/Events/cleanup/2587

Angela McLeod – UN Women helping Solomon Sisters

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Angela Mcleod cropped 1

Angela McLeod has been advocating for women for a very long time and is now president of UN Women Aotearoa New Zealand.

To commemorate International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, yes that is White Ribbon Day coming up next Tuesday the 25th, UN Women Aotearoa are holding an event called Journey to Justice, to launch a project that aims to reduce violence against women in the Solomon Islands.

In this interview Angela explains what the UN Women NC Aotearoa do, why it is important for us to support our Pacific Sisters in the Solomon’s and a small but effective thing we can do in everyday life to shift our attitudes toward equality for women.

And if you want to know how to get involved with this event http://www.unwomen.org.nz/?p=2407

  • Did you know there are 600 000 people located across 9 provinces and over 100 languages in the Solomon Islands.
  • Approximately 2/3 of women in the Solomon Islands have reported experiencing physical or sexual violence ( according to  2009 study).
  • 37% of sexual violence happens before the age of 15.
  • Violence against women is widely accepted by both men and women.
  • There are relatively little support services or other forms of assistance for women who have experienced this abuse.

UN Women Wrkshp in Honiara Mphoto Marni Gilbert

 

Thanks to Marni Gilbert for this shot of  the Transformational Leadership Workshop in Honiara, 2013

Darren Hoskins – our Welly waste

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Darren and laurie Southern Landfill.

I don’t think there are too many landfills that can boast a trout farm, an electricity generation plant as well as their own Bio Grow certified Capital Compost. And I wouldn’t have called the landfill a place I’d want to hang out at for long, but on my quest to find out what happens to my rubbish I met Darren Hoskin’s, our Southern Landfill Operations Manager, who has been working (well hanging out) at our Southern landfill for 21 years. Something in the water?

And you’ll never guess what the biggest resource that could be the next major opportunity for us is….actually you’ll never guess. You’ll have to listen. And it’s not the tyres.