Help At Hand for Ethnic Communities in New Zealand

Sir Ray Avery’s Charitable Trust HelpatHand is providing funding to support the Sahaayta Counselling & Social Support in its efforts to prevent the incidence and re-victimization of family and sexual violence in South Auckland.

Sir Ray said "South Auckland is the epicenter of family and sexual violence in New Zealand and the incidence of family violence is high in the Māori, Pacific Island and migrant families and the work that the Sahaayta undertakes day after day with over 30 ethnic communities in the South Auckland is heartwarming and inspirational.

So, we are very pleased to provide Sahaayta with wearable personal emergency response devices which at the press of a button can provide their staff and the people they look after with immediate assistance and support.

Sadly, despite being an accredited social services provider the organization receives no government funding and there is a great need to provide culturally appropriate support services to migrant and former refugee families in South Auckland where English may not be their first language.

The Sahaayta Counselling & Social support team speaks over 15 languages including English, Hindi, Fiji-Hindi, Shona, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Sri Lankan Tamil, Indian Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Tulu, Urdu, Singhalese.

They are also one of the most reputable ethnic service providers in New Zealand and are highly trusted by New Zealand Police and the courts and I believe that with government funding they may significantly reduce the amount of family harm and sexual harm offending."

Sucharita Varma Director of the Sahaayta said "Our staff will benefit from the personal safety devices that Help at Hand has committed to provide to us.

We work with vulnerable families with complex well-being needs in a 24/7 environment. This will ensure that the staff feel safer at all times that they can rely on higher level support if and when the need arises.

The people that we care for will also benefit from the safety watches. Victims are hypervigilant, anxious, and afraid. Police safety orders and protection orders don’t provide full protection but only create a boundary. Having access to the HelpatHand personal emergency alert devices will be highly beneficial to the well-being and safety of our clients, many of whom are survivors of family harm."

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