Torokiki, our community driven ideas platform, is now live and ready for ideas from the entire community on how the Queenstown Lakes District can recover from COVID-19 socially, economically and environmentally.

Torokiki emerged out of the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) recovery work following the impacts of COVID-19. Mayor Jim Boult and others within the Council started to receive many ideas from the community about how we could recover successfully. Torokiki will help manage those ideas and ensures the ones with the most impact can be driven forward.

“As we entered the recovery stage coming out of lockdown, I started to receive lots of ideas, I even had an idea of my own. Torokiki will help us prioritise and judge the ones which will have the most benefit and impact on the community,” said Mayor Boult.

“It’s not just about Council deciding what will be best, but allowing the entire community to input and help drive the ideas. Recovery is about everyone working together.”

However, Torokiki is more than just a platform to share ideas, it also requires the community to help shape and support those ideas by providing feedback and commenting on the ideas of others. Currently QLDC is committed to supporting three challenges which centre on important themes for the district including:

• Challenge 1 – How might we diversify the economy for Queenstown Lakes to minimise the effects of future shocks to our district?
• Challenge 2 – How might we become more resilient in our respective social communities, towns and district given the recent impacts of COVID-19?
• Challenge 3 – How might we reduce our district’s food waste and improve the resilience of our local food system to Climate Change?

You can submit ideas of your own or you can add your own lens, knowledge, or expertise to someone else’s idea to help them grow.

The challenges will be open for six weeks – closing 30 August 2020. From this point the best idea in each category will be progressed.

“This is a really important part of our recovery process. We need to do some extraordinary things to revitalise our district so we’re looking for some extraordinary ideas submitted to Torokiki,” said Mayor Jim Boult.

The Torokiki community will be a collective place, a place of sharing, a place of support, a place of innovation. Ideas and input will water and feed it so it becomes strong and sustains us. Head to torokiki.hunchbuzz.com, create a user profile and get started.

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