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Community Development and Wellbeing

This programme is about building relationships between and within communities to foster access to and participation in the arts. It’s also about building the capacity of the sectors we work with to provide ongoing access to the arts. The result of this will be enhanced individual and community wellbeing.

Arts Access Aotearoa works within a community cultural development framework, which aims to strengthen relationships both between and within communities, and create awareness among community members that our differences are fundamental to our identity.

This programme helps us achieve two of our strategic goals:

  • Building the capacity of the sectors we work with to deliver access to the arts
  • Building and maintaining strategic partnerships to make best use of Arts Access Aotearoa’s resources

Creative spaces network

There are more than 85 creative spaces throughout New Zealand and Arts Access Aotearoa provides opportunities for these spaces to engage with each other and promote their work. Stories on our website and in the media, our e-news and an online directory profile the work of creative spaces. In 2009, we are undertook a mapping project to research these spaces, thereby strengthening our capacity to work alongside them and ensure what we do is relevant to their needs. Contact Laura to receive a copy of the findings from this mapping project.

Capacity-building workshops

We run professional development and capacity-building workshops for creative spaces. In 2007, we published the Creative Spaces Resource Kit. This toolkit contains useful resources such as template documents, links to websites and information on funding, governance and marketing. In 2009, we are organising free capacity-building workshops in Auckland and Northland with funding support from ASB Community Trust and Auckland City Council.

Prison Arts Advisory Service

This service was introduced in November 2008 in partnership with the Department of Corrections to develop a national arts strategy for prisons and individual art plans for each of the 20 prisons in new Zealand.

With Trust Waikato funding, we contracted Te Rakau Hua o Te Wao Tapu Trust in late 2008 to present two performances of Ka Mate, Ka Ora and follow-up workshops to prisoners at Waikeria Prison in Te Awamutu. Visit our prison arts page for stories.

Community development projects

Arts Access Aotearoa supports and promotes community organisations working to provide opportunities for creative expression. We do this by facilitating partnerships between the community arts sector and professional arts sector, and providing advice through our Arts Access Aotearoa Information Service.

Here are some recent examples of community development projects we’ve been involved in.

  • Acting Up Charitable Trust: we provided governance advice, promoted its show The  Dream Working, and attended a performance in the Newtown Community and Cultural Centre in late 2008.
  • Eko Theatre: we provided funding advice and supported the Southern Corridor Project as an umbrella organisation to make a successful application for funding of its Southern Corridor Project. The central concern of this project is to present the personal perspectives of the Māori and Somali communities on identity, and their relationship with one another and with the land.