In Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt, a revolution is brewing. For five years it has been transforming the community, whānau and individual lives through ‘new’ systems. ‘New’ because what this community driven project is creating is based on age-old ways of doing things, and age-old values of reciprocity and doing things together so that everyone can flourish.
It started with an acre of vegetable garden at the Epuni Primary School and now it has expanded to an enterprise hub, the Waiwhetu ReMakery which is increasingly serving people living in greater Wellington - supporting start-up businesses, learning opportunities, intergenerational respect, healthy lifestyles, and social cohesion.
Julia Milne is the driving force behind this revolution. Her charitable trust, Common Unity Aotearoa, is the umbrella organisation for about 14 different initiatives and programmes which are coming on stream all the time. They receive no central government funding. They have had support from the Hutt City Council, a Give a Little site, many partners and donors, some philanthropic funding – and they are propelled by the engine of reciprocity. The aim is to be self-sufficient. And that’s not long away. Community Unity Project Aotearoa is currently a NZ Sustainable Business Network Award 2017 finalist.
Julia Milne took some precious time out to talk with us on the phone and tell us where they’ve come from and where they are going.
Beginnings
“It started because we wanted to create a local food system for Epuni. It is unfathomable to me that children in this country do not have enough good food. So we were able to use an old football field at Epuni Primary school and create an organic urban farm. Now all of the children at the school work in the garden on Tuesdays (parents and care givers are encouraged to join in and have some fun) and it is family gardening time on Saturdays, from 10:00 am - 1:00 pm. The garden produces enough food to make a large contribution to hot school lunches for the children three days a week. The school gets donations of food to provide what else is needed and every participating family can take home the vegetables that they need for that week.
“At the school we have had our Koha Kitchen, where we have been running a community cooking school each Wednesday. Darmiati Amin manages our weekly Koha Kitchen session where we prepare cooked meals for the children three days a week. People who come to help in the kitchen have an opportunity to learn new skills, connect with one another and contribute to the health and wellbeing of our children. They also get to take home an evening meal for their families, plus a share of any leftover ingredients.
“I think that the garden has had a huge impact on the community, not only through providing healthy food, but the parents are learning to provide mutual support and the children are witnessing the amount of cooperation and love that goes into their lunches - and they are part of that. It’s putting children back into the heart of our village.
“We also run a sewing group at the school on Friday mornings, where people who have those skills can pass them on to others. People from the community come into the school to teach the children to knit. They make small squares which they then learn how to sew together to make blankets that they can donate to people who need them.
“And we have Project Sunshine Aotearoa. Each year the children at the school grow hundreds of sunflowers. They dry the heads, collect the seeds and put them into beautiful seed packets and post them off to anyone around the country who wants them.
“Some time ago we started programmes outside of the school. Ngahere Kai (Forest Food) is a collaboration between us and Hutt City Council. We both want to make locally grown food available within walking distance of all families of Lower Hutt. So in 2016 we gave 250 heritage fruit trees to the city and in turn they provided nine different community parks which can become community fruit forests. We had community groups planting them on Father’s Day that year. Recently Khaled, our Syrian orchardist who works for us, grew 500 berry bushes for these community forests.
“Then a while ago, having listened to what some of the dads at the school were asking for, we started our Beeple Honey Collective. We have provided training and tools and we have employed Al, a local beekeeper to be their mentor. Last year they produced 100 kilos of honey. This year it was over 350 kilos from around 50 hives which are located all over the Wellington region. The honey can be shared in the community or sold to fund other community projects.
“Epuni Primary school has been incredibly supportive of what we do, but once we started projects that serve the wider community and started needing a lot more space we could see that we would have to start moving outside of the school. The beekeeping is a case in point. We need a space to manufacture our hives and extract and store our honey. The Beeple Honey Collective project is now just one of our community owned enterprises.
“So we have leased a building in Waiwhetu, just down the road from the school.
The ReMakery – a place to grow change
“Everything we do is based on waste re-incarnation and re-making what we have around us. Our Sew Good Collective is a good example of this. In 2016 we started our small business employing refugee and migrant women to make supermarket and school lunch bags out of old corporate uniforms. This reduces our reliance on plastic, and gives the women the chance to learn skills that may lead to employment. Currently they are overwhelmed with orders for food bags. The work certainly helps them get more confidence and integrate into our community. We are Living Wage Employers, so all the women can earn a living from this work. This group is now also working from the new hub. Soon there will be a shop on site.
“Now we are preparing to build an off-grid community kitchen at the ReMakery with the vision of getting to 2500 meals a day from our local food networks – so that these meals can be sent out to those most in need.
“Reciprocity is one of our important values. All recipients of what we produce are encouraged to give back to the community. ‘Together we grow’ is our strap line. To help this process we are setting up Timebanking and a new project called The Kete Food Share.
“We are also working on another partnership to provide Gateway courses. There are a lot of young people in our community not involved in work or training, and we plan to provide NZCA qualifications. Our first group of students are working on possum traps, building our community tables and are very keen to help us with our tiny house project. We have worked a lot with Corrections and Probation, particularly with up-grading our building. Some of this has led to us employing people that come to us via Community Service… Another one of our values is that no one is left behind. We like Edgar Kahn’s saying – ‘No throw away planet; no throw away people.’
“We are also just testing a new curriculum that we developed on beekeeping so we hope that young people, including those still at school, can get a qualification in honey production.
“At the moment we have rounded up a bunch of people who are helping us make a fuel from waste food. It can be done in a quite simple way. It has been happening for quite a long time in third world countries. Our dream is to be able to run the kitchen from fuel made from food waste.
“Because of the way we work, leaders emerge naturally and different people from the community move into project coordinator or mentoring roles. We also have someone on staff dedicated to assisting people setting up their own businesses. We are business incubators, helping people get themselves up and running using our business model.
“When the community heard that there was a building, we had an approach from some Māori in the community. They wanted to come and practise their kapa haka here, and some are doing carving. So now there are more Māori youth using the building too. They are looking for things to do – we are keen to help those that have been left behind by the schooling system into training and employment. We are excited about the development of urban entrepreneurs and small local enterprises that are linked to the wellbeing of our planet and each other.
“The whole project is held by strong values – particularly around reciprocity and sharing. One of my favourite values is courage. If you have the safety of one another you can be creative and courageous. With poverty and hardship there is an erosion of self-belief, so you stop thinking about courage and trying things in a new way. We encourage our project members to give and receive, acknowledging that everyone has something to offer and that we honour one another when we ask others to step forward and participate.”
Well over 300 people are currently in a Common Unity Project.