Brothers & Sisters at Wesley Rātā Village
In Partnership with Wesley Community Action
Wesley Rātā Village, previously known as Wesleyhaven has begun a journey of renewal. Since exiting aged-care in August 2017 they have made a significant amount of progress on this journey, their vision:
Across the generations, everyone contributing towards a good life.
Brothers & Sisters have had the privilege of contributing to this mahi. Below we share some of the stories from our 6-month residence at Wesley Rātā Village.
Connections between people and place are vital parts of any community and their wellbeing. Our aim for the 6-months was to grow and strengthen these already existing connections, and to foster new connections leading to the empowerment of the wider community.
We decided to implement and test a variety of initiatives across four strands of engagement:
Social Connectedness / Arts / Health / Environment
In total, Brothers and Sisters hosted and supported 69 events.
Below is some of the stories we created and shared.
Renovation of the old daycare centre into B&S headquarters
Community Connect Lunch - Social Connectedness
A monthly community lunch to support social connectedness. A total of 6 lunches were hosted with diverse attendees from Wesley Rātā Village residents, timebankers, local families and people who work in the area.
These were a great success, running for over one year, and are continuing as a monthly event led by Wesley staff and Hutt Timebank.
Wā Ora Montessori - Environment / Social Connectedness
An afternoon talk with students from Wā Ora who shared about their free-range egg business, their work restoring wetlands and their composting initiative. Residents got to meet some of the Wā Ora’s chickens and enjoyed many a good laughs.
Connect with Tech - Social Connectedness
We trialled an afternoon tea session where the young people from Naenae Clubhouse supported seniors with their technology issues and questions.
Hutt Winter Festival - Environment; Social Connectedness
We supported Naenae Nature Trust to host two wonderful events: a Nature Playgroup that included storytelling and a puppet show in the forest; and native tree planting. About 20 children and parents attended the nature playgroup and about 10 people attended the native tree planting. 50 trees were planted.