Engage Aotearoa

Category Archives: Women

Support Group for Women to Talk about Same Sex Attraction; Auckland

Questioning?

Would you like a supportive women’s space to talk about same sex attraction?

This group is participant directed, a space to explore topics like:

  • What does same sex attraction mean to you?
  • Identity labels…e.g.  Bi, Queer, Lesbian, Dyke
  • Stereotypes and gender stereotypes
  • Being in an opposite sex relationship and having same sex attraction
  • Finding community and dating
  • Being out in society
  • If you want to come out, how to tell family, friends, work colleagues
  • Relationships with women
  • You, your children and a new relationship

This six-week group is facilitated by Cissy Rock and Ellie Lim.  Cissy is a prominent contributor to the Auckland Lesbian scene creating events and support groups.  She enjoys getting alongside people and sharing her experience as a mother, feminist, lesbian, friend and partner.  Ellie works for the Auckland Women’s Centre and has had extensive involvement with rainbow organisations.  She is passionate about enabling women to live the lives they dream of living.

Comments from previous participants:  (I enjoyed) “Being able to connect with people and talk to people who were experiencing similar things to me.  Having experienced people to help us and cheer us on.”  “Really enjoyed (it) and appreciated the professional delivery. Thanks! :-)”

Date: Tuesdays 7 July – 11 August, 2015
Time: 7.00pm-9.00pm
Venue: Auckland Women’s Centre, 4 Warnock Street, Grey Lynn
Cost: FREE
Contact: Ellie on 376 3227 ext 1 or email her on womensservices@womenz.org.nz
Come along, ask questions, share, this is a safe, non-judgemental environment. (6 weeks)

Engage Facebook Highlights

Here are a half a dozen recent highlights from our Facebook page. Please LIKE US!

Nuggets
Kiwi tastes a golden nugget. It’s delicious. Superb animated film about addiction.

Writing from the Toi Ora Creative Writers in the ArtWeek zine
Toi Ora writers make a splash: writing from Matthew Savage, Liz Higgins, Andrew Holdaway and more.

Nine Things Every Parent with an Anxious Child Should Try
Your child turns to you and says, “I don’t want to take the bus. My stomach hurts. Please don’t make me go.” A discussion

Public lecture by Professor Rosalind Gill: Sexting, sexualisation and sexism
Modern youth sexuality, sexting and the sexy selfie. 27 November 2014, 6pm.

Finding the Treatment Options that Suck Less
The Crazymeds Manifesto: to help you find treatment options that suck less.

Worst Things to Say to a Person With Bipolar Disorder
When your friend or loved one has bipolar disorder, here are the worst things you can tell them.

New Poetry Book Charts Trauma Recovery Journey

Engage Aotearoa’s service director can most often be found sharing other people’s recovery stories and experiences. But in her spare time she is a poet, and writing under her maiden name, Miriam Barr, she recently had her first major collection of poetry published by Steele Roberts Aotearoa, one of New Zealand’s leading publishers of home-grown poetry.

Bullet-hole-riddle-FRONTcoverThe book features cover art by Elke Finkenauer and interior art from Andrew Blythe‘s untitled ‘No’ series. The back-cover reads, “Bullet Hole Riddle is a three-part narrative sequence charting one person’s journey to make sense of an unwanted history. Framing personal experience as a series of collective acts, Miriam Barr’s first major collection of poetry tells a story about the human psyche and the spaces between us.”

Those familiar with Engage Aotearoa will know what Miriam means when she comments on the Engage Facebook page, “I guess this [Bullet Hole Riddle] is kinda like my Butterfly Diaries story in a way. In poetry form.”

An Auckland Women’s Centre article by Sabrina Muck goes on to say, “Tied into the overall message of the book, it is worth noting its dedication, which tells us this is for the untold stories. Speaking with Miriam in the week following the announcement of the Roastbusters outcome, she felt this was particularly relevant in light of the young women’s experiences in that case, and the voices of too many survivors which continue to go unheard. Steele Roberts is to be commended for supporting this book on its journey and bringing Miriam’s voice into the public sphere.”

The CMHRT Board of Trustees and the volunteer team at Engage Aotearoa would like to congratulate Miriam for her poetic achievement and wish her all the best for Bullet Hole Riddle’s journey into the world.

Bullet Hole Riddle can be ordered online at www.steeleroberts.co.nz or from your local bookseller. Copies are available to borrow at Auckland City Libraries and the Auckland Women’s Centre Library. Check out reader reviews and share your own at GoodReads.com. Find out more about the book at www.miriambarr.com/bulletholeriddle.

Butterfly Diaries Launched: Order Online

The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 was launched on the 13th of October at Fiesta in the Park – a free book of four true stories of recovery from the experience of being suicidal.

Engage Aotearoa set up a tent and invited people to take a book, decorate a butterfly with a coping tip and leave it on the tent to share with others. Sixty free books were handed out on the day and The Butterfly Diaries tent finished up covered in colourful butterflies and heaps of helpful tips people wanted to share.

Online orders flew in thick and fast since the release was first announced and another 2 00 books were posted out to across the country in the days following the launch. Books have been sent to Kaitaia, Kohukohu, Kerikeri, Whangarei, all across Auckland, Hamilton, Raglan, Thames, Tauranga, Timaru, Wellington, Lower Hutt, Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill and a range of towns the team had never heard of before. Orders even came in from as far afield as Glasgow and The Netherlands in the first few days. There are now only 20 copies of the first print run left and the team at Engage Aotearoa are in the process of ordering more.

As soon as the books flew out into the world, the first comments started flying in…

I’ve read my copy of the Butterfly Diaries and think it’s excellent – you must be really pleased with the end result, as I imagine the participants are. I’d be keen to get a box of them so we can take them with us when we present around the country.” 

Order Online

The Butterfly Diaries is free for individuals in the community. A small donation is requested to cover the cost of postage and handling ($2.50 p/bk). If you cannot donate, simply email Engage Aotearoa with your address and you’ll be sent a copy anyway. 

Organisations can order copies online by making a donation to cover the cost of printing and posting the copies ordered ($5 p/bk). This allows Engage Aotearoa to keep free copies available for individuals in the community who may not use services.

Share the poster with the people you know and help make recovery stories easy for Kiwis to find.

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The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1: Launch & Order Details

The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 is a FREE book of inspiring stories and personal tips from four people who have recovered from the experience of being suicidal.

Launch Details:

NOTE: Event Moved to Sunday 13th of October due to rain forecast for Saturday the 12th. 

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Engage Aotearoa will be launching The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 at Fiesta in the Park on the 13th of October for Mental Health Awareness Week. Come along to the free public concert and pop into The Butterfly Diaries Tent – a quiet corner covered in white paper butterflies where you can stop by to decorate a butterfly with a survival tip of your own, pick up a copy of the book, relax with a copy in the reading corner or listen to the authors and editors read from the book.

  • Where: Fiesta in the Park, Western Park, Ponsonby, Auckland
  • When: From midday Sunday 13 October 2012
    Reading Times:
    12:30 – 1:00 pm Michelle Bolton reads from Breathe and Breathe and Breathe by Phoebe Wright
    1:30 – 2:00 pm Owen Bullock reads from Enough Angels
    2:30 – 3:00 pm Miriam Larsen-Barr reads from Welcome to Today by Henrietta Bollinger
  • 3:30 – 4:00 pm Raewyn Alexander reads from Emerging from the Past, Transformed

The Butterfly Diaries, Volume 1
Four true stories of transformation told by four New Zealand writers.

  • Stories by Raewyn Alexander, Henrietta Bollinger, Owen Bullock and Phoebe Wright.
  • Foreword by Mike King
  • Edited by Miriam Larsen-Barr and Michelle Bolton

In Aotearoa, New Zealand, 1 in 6 people have suicidal thoughts each year. It is a normal human response to feel hopeless sometimes. It takes a great deal of distress tolerance, brute determination, skill development, support and understanding to survive the urge to act on those thoughts and feelings when they arise. But hardly anyone ever talks about suicidal thoughts and feelings, making it even harder for people to find out how to get through. The Butterfly Diaries gives voice to the stories of those who have been there and made it out alive. Sean, Jane, Mary and Brad have all been suicidal, survived their own suicide attempts and found their way to a place where they are glad to be living their lives. In The Butterfly Diaries they share how they strengthened their wings and learned to fly.

The first edition of The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 will be placed in high-schools and GP waiting rooms across the NZ, to make recovery stories easy to find. Suicide rates peak among youth and most people who are suicidal visit a GP in the months leading up to making an attempt, even if they do not talk about how they are really feeling.

How to Order Copies

You can nominate a service or person to receive a copy of The Butterfly Diaries or order a copy for yourself by making a donation on the Engage Aotearoa website to cover the cost of posting your book. Just fill in your details and give the delivery address in the space provided. The minimum donation is set at NZ$2.50 (the cost of NZ postage and handling). A donation of $5 will get a copy posted for you and cover the costs of printing a copy for someone else.

Click here to order a copy of The Butterfly Diaries

Contact Engage Aotearoa for more information

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Want to help prevent suicide in NZ?

You can help get more copies of The Butterfly Diaries out there for people to read. Sponsor a print run by making a donation on the Engage Aotearoa website.  Every donation over $5 is tax deductible. A $20 donation pays for eight more books. A $500 donation prints enough books for a small school. 

The Victory Fashion Parade | Whangarei | 28 Sep 2013

When Engage Aotearoa visited Whangarei with Mike King and Key to Life for the Community Korero earlier this year, the team met a wonderful woman named Vicky Flavell who wanted to put her passion for fashion design behind a good cause.

The Victory Fashion Parade brings together designers from the Far North for a night of style, with all proceeds going towards Engage Aotearoa’s project to get printed copies of The Community Resources Directory and The Butterfly Diaries out into communities across the country. Making help easy to find when people are struggling is an important part of preventing suicide in NZ. Now, the people of Whangarei can help make that happen just by enjoying a good night out with their friends.

  • 6 pm, Saturday 28 September 2013
  • Toll Stadium, Whangarei
  • Tickets $40
  • Contact no. 021 144 6080

Victory Fashion Parade Whangarei 28 Sep 2013

 

 

Mike King Korero Heads to Taranaki Region in September

Mike King and Tai Tupou are hitting the road again in September to encourage schools and communities to make it cool to korero about the tough stuff, so we all make it through.

  • 10 September, 1 pm, Cool to Korero, Francis Douglas College, New Plymouth
  • 10 September, 7:30 pm, Community Korero, War Memorial Hall, Stratford
  • 11 September, 7:30 pm, Community Korero, Waves Building, New Plymouth
  • 11 September, 12:30 am, Cool to Korero for Hawera High and Patea Area School, The Hub, Hawera
  • 12 September, 11:30 am, Combined Community Cool to Korero, Opunake College, Opunake

While the team at Key to Life are getting ready to hit the road, the team at Engage Aotearoa will be adding recovery resources from each of these towns to The Community Resources Directory, so they can be delivered to those who need them when the team hits the ground in each of their locations across Taranaki. If you know of any services in the Taranaki region you think others would find useful, email them in.

Engage Community Resources Directory Updated 3 July 2013

The Engage Community Resources Directory has had another round of updates added, including…

  • A Psychiatrists Section that lists most of the community mental-health services in the country
  • More Crisis Teams
  • Rotorua, Tokoroa, Hamilton therapists added
  • Plus other services that have been sent in from community members. Keep them coming, guys!

The information manager at Engage Aotearoa still has stacks of services waiting to be added, so keep an eye out for next month’s update. As usual, there is so much more waiting to be shared.

Visit The Community Treasure Chest to check out your own copy of The Community Resources Directory.

 

Hikoi for Better Mental-Healthcare Choices Builds Up to Petition Presentation at Parliament

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Mike King Korero Goes to Kawakawa 7 May 2013

Engage Aotearoa and Key to Life Charitable Trust will be taking the Mike King Korero to Kawakawa on the 7th of May for two sessions at Bay of Islands College. In the morning, students at Bay of Islands College will get the chance to take part in the Cool to Korero seminar that aims to encourage students to talk about their problems with people they trust before things get on top of them. In the evening, community members will be able to take part in the Community Korero to discuss how to help prevent suicide in their town.

Click here to read about the Whangarei Community Korero that took place on the 9th of April and made the front page of the Northern Advocate.

Click here to check out photos and feedback from the Whangarei Korero.

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