This Week's Meeting - 3 November 2014
This week we began with a very inspiring 5 Minute Speaker – Jaden Movold. Jaden, who is 10 years old, has spina bifida, which means he is unable to walk, but he still has a huge passion for sport and so far this year has completed five triathlons for his age group. As well as being an athlete, Jaden is an ambassador, an advocate, a performer and a fundraiser, whose hope is to represent New Zealand in para-swimming. Jaden never sets limits on what he can achieve, but embraces challenges with incredible positivity and enthusiasm. His drive, attitude and competitive spirit will no doubt see him achieve his dreams of representing NZ in sports one day.
Jaden was then followed by our guest speaker and Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy. Susan described the time when she took on this role as a ‘baptism of fire’, but things have since settled down and she is enjoying her job. There are approximately one hundred different commissioners in New Zealand, with Race Relations coming under the Human Rights Commission, which answers to the government and ultimately the United Nations. New Zealand is a changing country, which is extremely multi-cultural and the ‘she’ll be right’ attitude no longer cuts it. We need to move past viewing ‘diversity’ as a descriptor and rid the country of our ‘inherent’ racism, which for many people they won’t even realise they do on a daily basis. We need to understand that ‘diversity’ isn’t a static concept and stereotyping a person just because of their race, religion, etc. does an injustice to everyone involved. For example, we need to understand the difference regarding ethnicity when a person has been born in New Zealand verses when a person has travelled here. It is not enough to just welcome the ‘other’; we need to look at the bigger picture and to take a holistic approach to ensure newcomers are included into our community.
Finally, our newest member of just two weeks, Greg Woodd, was thrown in the deep end and given the task of Sergeant and what a fantastic job he did. Our 5 Minute speaker showed us what The Sunshine Fund is all about – the support of youth programmes. Greg ensured the buckets with ringing with cash, by fining those who didn’t know what the second most common language in New Zealand is (Hindi), those who didn’t attend any Rotary function last Monday (which just happened to be a public holiday) and those who hadn’t completed at least five triathlons this year (which our 5 Minute Speaker had done).