NewZAID May 2012

Issue No. 88  

Kia ora, welcome to the latest edition of NewZAID. Both at home and overseas
New Zealanders are helping businesses grow, reducing communities’ vulnerabilities to disaster and disease, and finding technical solutions to development problems. The
New Zealand Aid Programme is proud to support partnerships that allow New Zealanders to apply their expertise and fresh ideas to help in developing countries. Harnessing our unique strengths ensures we can make a positive, tangible difference to the lives of people who need it most.

Amanda Ellis, Head of New Zealand Aid Programme

Salamasina-Tausala o Samoa graduates celebrate their success

Twenty women graduated from Salamasina-Tausala o Samoa last week. This 12 week training and work experience programme is one of many initiatives targeting women’s leadership in the Pacific through the Emerging Pacific Women’s Leadership programme, which is jointly supported by New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the World Bank.

PNG benefits from Business Mentor model

The Pacific Business Mentoring Programme now operates in seven Pacific countries, with 45 mentors and four skills-based trainers helping more than 400 clients improve their business performance. Business Mentor George Spiers has recently been paired with Anne Timi, Managing Director of Mijoan Limited in Hohola, Port Moresby.

Young minds, fresh solutions

The New Zealand Aid Programme is proud to sponsor an award as part of the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme for an enterprise that addresses a development issue. Recent recipients of the award from St Thomas of Canterbury College visited Wellington to present their product, The Lion, which converts heat generated by cooking into energy that can charge mobile phones and LED lights. They also met Prime Minister John Key.

Aid programme staff share Sphere training with humanitarian sector

Representatives from New Zealand NGOs and international humanitarian agencies joined staff from the Council for International Development, MFAT and Police for a two-day training workshop in Wellington this month. Led by experts from the New Zealand Aid Programme, the intensive training focused on Sphere, a world-wide set of principles and standards for humanitarian response.

Ni-Vanuatu benefit from surgery in NZ

Each year, around 150 people from Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu and Kiribati benefit from a New Zealand Aid Programme sponsored medical scheme that provides a variety of surgeries and treatments not available to them in their home countries. This month NewZAID brings you the story of six adults and two children from Vanuatu making good recoveries following life-saving heart surgeries in Auckland.

VSA celebrates 50 years of Kiwi volunteering overseas

During the past 50 years, VSA has sent more than 3,500 Kiwi volunteers to work with communities in developing countries. To mark the milestone VSA has organised a travelling photo exhibition starting in June, Windows to another World: Images from 50 years of Volunteering Abroad, which features photos taken by VSA volunteers and staff over the past half century.

Positive Parenting Skills workshop for RSE workers

Recognised seasonal workers from Tonga, employed by Compass Fruit, attended a workshop with a positive parenting specialist in Nelson recently as part of their Vakameasina course. The aim of the Vakameasina (which loosely translates as “basket of treasures”) is to provide 500 RSE workers annually with access to English language, numeracy, financial literacy, and health and life skills training during their time in New Zealand.