The Women of Colour Aotearoa community
It has been amazing to see this community grow so organically over the past 18 months!
From our first event of bringing Asian women together to talk about the challenges we face at work to the online antiracism event our New Zealand Human Relations Commissioner Meng Foon and Inclusive Aotearoa to the last event of 2022 which was a reflection and celebration with our community and allies. Thanks to Xero and Rewired for your continual support to sponsor us with food and venue.
At our last event, we asked our community three questions:
1) What is the WoC Aotearoa community?
2) How would you like to engage with this community?
3) How do we grow this community to be bigger, better and stronger?
Below is an image of what we think the community is.
This is a space where we belong, a space where we feel safe and seen. We can share and listen to others' stories. We connect and provide career growth opportunities. We work with our allies to counter racism and sexism.
The community has expressed the need to have more regular events. For example, we can have monthly get-togethers for networking and every few months have a more formal event like a speaker panel or workshop. The community would also like to stay in touch with each other through a group chat and offer mentoring opportunities for the younger generation. Group chat is currently available through whatsapp for Auckland and Wellington, and Aotearoa through our slack channel. Message us to get an invitation.
We have got big plans to grow this community. So we would like to put the call out there for committee members for 2023.
Committee members will be volunteers who will further refine the vision and direction of this community and oversee the running of events. The time commitment required would be about 4-6 hours a month (3 hours of organising and attending the monthly event + 1 hour of committee meeting). Our first meeting will be setting the vision and calendar for 2023.
If you are interested, please get in touch.