Great news for me today was getting the 'go ahead' or approval for an arts funding application that I made to my local board as a result of the success of last years exhibition and community book launch. This year I wanted to:- hold a series of week long writing workshops with local high schools in Mangere and Otahuhu as a part of a competition to seek entries submitted for a collection of short stories and poetry for a publication alongside the Mana Mangere writers collection who will also be the judges.
- to self-publish a funded book to be launched on a topic that I started my first PhD in Geography at Auckland Uni back in 1997 (but never finished due to getting married and starting a family) called a 'sense of belonging'.
This is again one of my many projects that I'm working towards this year as I'm definitely into setting goals from one year to the next, making plans towards those goals and then working on the plan with determination to make it happen. Then to reach the goal and celebrate it later i.e. I'm big on celebrations and sharing it with a community of people (even if that means just my family).
As one of the values that I learnt from my parents and in working within my Pasifika community is about learning to share knowledge and allowing others to also learn from those experiences so that they too can succeed. This does mean teaching about self discipline and working with integrity but it also means allowing for mistakes to happen and that means not always 'rescuing' people from learning about valuing others and the resources within an environment.
So now that I have the 'green light' go ahead, it's about organising and gathering all the different people and resources to design the workshops and the book which is no easy feat by any means but it is an opportunity for learning that I never had when I was in high school.
Now thanking God for these neat opportunities of working within the community and sharing what I've been gifted with for our next generations...
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