“When you cast your vote, please think of the impact on poorer New Zealanders” urges Downtown Community Ministry’s (DCM) Director Stephanie McIntyre.

“Low income people continue to endure a disproportionate burden of increases in the cost of housing, transport, utilities and food and have had no appreciable increase in income” says Stephanie.

Quoting the famous words of John Donne: “No man is an island” the new City Missioner Susan Blaikie reinforced this concern, speaking to DCM’s AGM earlier this week. Susan’s message to voters was to remember the significance of community.

Referring back to the saying “It takes a village to raise a child,’ Susan said that the identity forged by our communal upbringing doesn’t fade away when we are adults.

“To be fully human together must necessarily include our identity as communal beings; we flourish in villages, and we die in isolation,” she said.

“Susan’s thoughts tie in well with our DCM vision ‘Wellington is a community in which collective responsibility, interdependence and the valuing of diversity are seen as the keys to a fair and just society’.

“Supporters of DCM who keep these things in mind when they vote will know that – whatever the outcome – they will have done what they can to vote for a Wellington and New Zealand that will do its best for the people DCM and the City Mission work with, and that means a city and country that will be better for all of us,” reflecting on Susan’s remarks, Stephanie said.

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