Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Strong collaboration prepares to launch TOP Timberlea

Upper Hutt City Council leading another street by street project.

UPPER HUTT, Wellington NZ, Friday, 30 JUL 2013 – The Community Development team at Upper Hutt City Council, are about to launch a Safe Hutt Valley community project, TOP (‘Together Our Place’) Timberlea in partnership with a strong collaborative working group called Safer Communities, Working Together.

The aim of this project is to engage with residents in Timberlea street by street promoting safety, healthy living, and positive community participation. For the month of August this project group will be in the Timberlea community talking to residents about their perceptions of the area to establish what the community identifies as being its biggest strengths and challenges.

Maoribank School Principal, Paula Afoa says “It's a real privilege to be part of the community as a support for families as they build on their own strengths. It is not for us to tell people how to live, it is about finding ways in which we can be involved with the Timberlea community, obviously from an education perspective, but in a wider whanau sense as well.”

There will be a monthly TOP Timberlea newsletter going out to all residents, and monthly events will be held encouraging safety, health, and wellbeing.

“TOP Timberlea is about family-centred, community-led development,” says Jessica Setu, Council’s Community Development Team Leader. “We encourage families to participate, be involved in the decision making, and lead the way forward for their neighbourhood. The supporting agencies that sit on the working group are there to create pathways for the families as they take this journey.”

This Safe Hutt Valley project contributes to the Hutt Valley’s Safe City accreditation with the World Health Organisation. The Timberlea community is being supported through this project by multiple agencies including NZ Police, Neighbourhood Support Group, Victim Support, Wellington Region Emergency Management, Family and Community Services (MSD), Orongomai Marae, ACC, Regional Public Health, NZ Fire Service, Department of Corrections, Problem Gambling Association of NZ, and Department of Internal Affairs, as well as members of the Timberlea community.

“We’re so excited to have Maoribank School supporting this project and hopefully to discover some great untapped leadership skills amongst the school families. Just like the TOP Trentham project, it was the young people that inspired the positive changes and neighbourhood morale shift,” says Ms Setu.
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