Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week Simon talks to Elisha Watson of underwear company Nisa. When … Read more
Women from migrant and refugee backgrounds celebrate food and storytelling from their diverse cultures at Renu Sikka’s Auckland workshops. “Food is something that connects people,” says Renu Sikka. “It sparks that conversation.” Sikka is a teacher at Henderson Primary School in Auckland, and in her spare time runs workshops – mainly based around food – for … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: National plans approach to regaining government in 2020, fishing industry letter about onboard cameras to Stuart Nash revealed, and unemployment up. The National Party are off on their caucus retreat to start the year, and are already promising more policy will be rolled out well before … Read more
In the final part of our series profiling people from refugee backgrounds who now call New Zealand home: Patrick Lam, who fled from Cambodia to Vietnam, and then Australia, and is now an award-winning piemaker in Tauranga. Patrick Lam has already been at work for a couple of hours by the time the sun starts … Read more
Amnesty International today hands over 10,276 signatures to Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway in the form of the I Welcome Pledge, which urges the government to make community sponsorship for refugees permanent. This scheme, explains Meg de Ronde of Amnesty International NZ, complements the refugee quota programme, with the difference being that community groups take the lead, providing … Read more
Our new series produced by the New Zealand Red Cross profiles people from refugee backgrounds who now call New Zealand home. Our fourth Kiwi Legend: Sahra Ahmed, who fled Somalia at the age of nine to become a nurse and mental health advocate for her local community in Christchurch. Sahra Ahmed vividly remembers arriving at Auckland … Read more
Our new series produced by the New Zealand Red Cross profiles people from refugee backgrounds who now call New Zealand home. Our third Kiwi Legend: Mitchell Pham, who escaped alone from Vietnam as a 12-year-old, and went on to create a hugely successful NZ software company. Mitchel Pham has fond memories of his early childhood … Read more
Our new series produced by the New Zealand Red Cross profiles people from refugee backgrounds who now call New Zealand home. Our second Kiwi Legend: Niborom Young, who found herself locked out of Cambodia and stranded here in 1975. In March 1975 Niborom Young was in New Zealand on a student exchange. She had just … Read more
Our new series produced by the New Zealand Red Cross profiles people from refugee backgrounds who now call New Zealand home. Our first Kiwi Legend: Jorge Sandoval, who fled Pinochet’s Chile for a new life in the Hutt Valley. It’s November 1988 and competitors in the Vuelta Ciclista de Chile (Chilean cycling race) are jostling … Read more
Last month the government committed to increase New Zealand’s refugee quota to 1500. Now New Zealand must accept more refugees from Africa and the Middle East, writes South Sudanese-Kiwi and former refugee Clench Enoka. I was born in a refugee camp in Kenya. I had no country to call home. My parents were born in South … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: PM put on the back foot over refugee quota, police reject pay offer, and some juicy local government drama unfolds in Cromwell. Plans to increase the refugee quota appear to be in jeopardy, after a public intervention from deputy PM Winston Peters, reports Newshub. Mr Peters set events … Read more
Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. Murdoch Stevens details how to use and get around the Zuckerberg Empire in his attempts to spread public awareness about increasing the quota of refugees into New Zealand. I was curious about what it would actually take to get the refugee quota increased. I knew I could draw on friends across the … Read more
Refugees will once again be resettled in Christchurch as the government moves ahead with long delayed plans to raise the quota. But will the small number of initial placements make a difference? The new government – particularly Labour and the Greens – came into office promising to raise the refugee quota from 1000 to 1500 … Read more
As a toddler, Nida Fiazi escaped Afghanistan with her mother in a quest for survival. Instead they ended up in a detention camp in Nauru. Thalia Kehoe Rowden tells their story. Content note: This is a distressing story of seeking asylum and detention, and includes discussion of psychiatric illness, self-harm and suicide. When Waikato University … Read more
Whether making Somali sauces or Nepali dumplings, former refugees are providing income for their families and delicious food for the rest of us. New Zealanders who have arrived here as refugees make up an ever-increasing part of the food scene in Aotearoa. Thank goodness! Can you imagine eating only the foods of your home culture … Read more
Sandra Ivanov and her family left Serbia in the 1990s to escape the wars that tore the region apart. She ended up in New Zealand, and this year went back to Serbia to volunteer to help the continuing wave of refugees passing through her birthplace. Here is her account of the continuing crisis. Thousands of … Read more
Shaymaa Arif from Hamilton has spent part of this year volunteering as an Arabic interpreter at a medical clinic in Moria Camp, one of the camps in the Greek Islands where refugees are struggling to survive. She says New Zealand must not turn its back on the crisis. It is so easy for us in New … Read more
We were all horrified to see children ripped from their parents’ arms at the US-Mexico border last month. Sadly, this kind of thing happens in Australia, too, under their mandatory detention policies. Thalia Kehoe Rowden talked to a human rights lawyer about one family that has been separated for the last three years. Content note: … Read more
New Zealanders are outraged at how the United States is treating asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. Thalia Kehoe Rowden reckons this is a good time to figure out if we want to be the good guys or the bad guys, here in Aotearoa. Whenever New Zealanders criticise other countries’ treatment of refugees, someone on … Read more
New Zealanders have been rightly horrified by Trump’s camps separating children from their parents. Are we similarly outraged by the illegal detention by the Australian government of babies and mothers? Thalia Kehoe Rowden spoke to some mums living in Nauru, waiting for years to be welcomed to a new country. Content note: this article contains … Read more
When the US is ripping children from the arms of their parents and throwing them into cages, we are firmly at the point in history where future generations might ask, ‘what would I have done?’ writes the Greens’ human rights spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman. We live at a moment in global history when the world’s most powerful state … Read more
Practical steps to take right now if you’re appalled at the news coming out of the United States. From the far side of an ocean, we in Aotearoa are watching, horrified, as human rights abuses unfold in real time on the United States-Mexico border. US President Donald Trump has ordered children to be taken from … Read more
This World Refugee Day, and always, I hope the portraits and voices of our resettled community in Aotearoa can guide us in our efforts to ensure they feel valued, writes Áine Kelly-Costello. What is cultural pride? It is not pretending that any culture is perfect, or making comparisons between cultures to argue that one is above … Read more
Refugee advocates are celebrating a win with a promised increase of the quota under the new government, but those refugees who get here are still facing years-long waits for family to join them. Tessa Johnstone reports “That’s me!” Mohamed* says, with a grin. He’s pointing to a grainy photo of a clipping from a Maltese … Read more
The new government needs to roll back a policy that stops Africans claiming refugee status – and undermines the human rights at the foundation of our refugee policy, argues Murdoch Stephens. Politics make strange bedfellows and the campaign to double New Zealand’s refugee quota has been bunking down with some truly odd folk as of … Read more
Murdoch Stephens from the anarchist publishing firm Lawrence & Gibson,on working with Brannavan Gnanalingam, a finalist in tonight’s Ockham New Zealand national book awards. Some of our authors come to us with a title that encapsulates the concept of their book and which we’re instantly sure of: Milk Island was an example of a title arriving … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Australia plays politics with NZ’s refugee offer, National vows to reverse govt’s stance on oil exploration, and dentists warn against getting teeth done overseas. Behind closed doors, Australia asked New Zealand to keep a rejected offer to take refugees interred on Manus Island on the table, … Read more
In the fourth story in our series celebrating the amazing things young New Zealanders do every day, meet Millie Whetu, a young entrepreneur who believes big business needs big dreams, big vision and a big heart. Most kids would have spent time during the summer school holidays at their local playground. But not Millie Whetu. … Read more
Every week we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves through eight simple questions. This week we talk to Elisha Watson, who quit her full-time job as a lawyer to start Nisa – an organic cotton underwear company that employs women from refugee backgrounds. ONE: How did Nisa start and what was the inspiration behind it? Before … Read more