Another $50,000 is being injected into initiatives to improve mental wellbeing in the Southern Lakes in the latest Te Hau Toka Connecting Communities funding round.
The funding’s spread across 50 groups and organisations, each of which will get about
$1000 to help facilitate community-led activities.
In Queenstown, Keiko Okumura is organising a Japanese Family Society of Queenstown ‘women’s wellbeing workshop’, being held next month, and says the money will fund a
projector, screen and speakers, childcare for women who wish to attend, and lunch.
‘‘The feedback is just the mother is so appreciative that [they] could bring [their] children [to the] workshop,’’ she says.
‘‘They didn’t have to worry about all the lunch … so they just come in and [have] a really good time for the day.’’
Most importantly, Okumura says, the wellbeing workshop will be run entirely in Japanese to break down any remaining barriers for women who want to attend.
She hopes it’ll raise awareness about mental health among Queenstown’s Japanese
women.
‘‘The Japanese culture is very behind when it’s about wellbeing.
‘‘[At the workshop] we intro duce what is wellbeing and we want to keep … checking how
they are.’’
Other Queenstown funding recipients include Wakatipu Mini Muscles, Queenstown Hill Trapping Group, Queenstown Indian Community, St Joseph’s School, and Community Sing.
Applications for the next round of Connecting Communities funding open October 31.
Meantime, Okumura’s also secured funding for October’s Multicultural Festival, to bring the Japanese, Indonesian, Filipino, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Malaysian, Singaporean, and Bruneian communities together for food, language workshops and performances.
