Activities to date

Our major fundraising event to date was the North Shore World Peace Concert, a multicultural event organised by Laurie Ross, which attracted about 1000 people to the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna on 20 July 2002 and raised a net profit of $3000 for the Rawene Centre.

Since then, we have:

• Organised a pot-luck dinner at the Rawene Centre on 2 November 2002 to thank everyone involved in the July concert and to help introduce new refugees and migrants to people in the wider NZ community.

• Worked with North Shore City Council community worker Jill Nerheny, Beach Haven School, Kelmarna Gardens, Unitec's organic farming course and the Karen community itself to enable the Karen people to establish a remarkable terraced community garden in a gully behind Beach Haven School in late 2003. The North Shore City Council gave us a grant of $1050 which we paid on to the Karen people to get the garden established.

• Raised a grant of $1000 from the Auckland City Council Creative Communities fund to contribute towards the cost of costumes and musical instruments for a Karen cultural group.

• Negotiated with the Beach Haven Scouts about possible use by the Karen community of part of their hall in Tui Park, Rambler Cres. In the end the Karen community decided that the cost of the hall would have been prohibitive, at least for the moment.

• Helped a Karen youth group to arrange use of sports facilities at Northcote College on Saturdays (since replaced by garden working bees and a soccer team).

• Helped the NZ Burma Support Group to organise an annual picnic in December for the combined North Shore and Glen Innes groups of refugees from Burma.

• Helped a group to establish a small gardening and odd jobs business, Kiwi Karen Services.

• Worked with Northcote MP Ann Hartley and others to help representatives of the Burmese refugees in New Zealand to meet with Foreign Minister Phil Goff after Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested in May 2003, and to take an open letter to Prime Minister Helen Clark (via Labour MP Darren Hughes) in Wellington in June 2004. NZ Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson also attended the June meeting.

• Provided contacts for the refugees from Burma to organise other events to promote democracy in Burma, such as the annual commemoration of the massacre of students by the Burmese military on 8 August 1988. North Shore Mayor George Wood presided at last year's commemoration at the Beach Haven Ratepayers' Hall on 8 August 2004. This year the event was held in Queen St, Auckland.

• Helped with liaison between refugees from Burma and organisers of other events such as the annual Refugee & Migrant Service multicultural festival in Potters Park in Mt Roskill, another annual refugee concert at King's College in Otahuhu, a Rodney District multicultural concert at Orewa in 2003, the annual Human Rights Day event in Aotea Square in Auckland, a benefit concert for Aung San Suu Kyi held in Grey Lynn in July 2003 and a peace event held in the Civic nightclub in Auckland in February 2004.

• Contributed towards the costs for two Karen people from New Zealand to attend an international conference of Karen organisations on the Thai/Burmese border in May-June 2004.

• Begun work on a project to collect traditional Karen stories and songs, and more recent stories about the refugees' lives in the Burmese jungle, in Thai refugee camps and in New Zealand, for publication in a book which can also be a fundraising project.

• Held a fundraising jazz evening, “Satchmo”, at the Pumphouse in Takapuna on 5 September 2004, which made a net profit of $1150.

• Helped the NZ Burma Support Group to organise a public meeting at Auckland University on 23 March 2005 about conditions in refugee camps on the Thai/Burmese border, and to collect books and clothing for the people in the camps.

• Helped the United Democratic Burmese Community (NZ) to organise a visit to Auckland and Wellington by three exiled Burmese MPs from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in April 2005, which led to the formation of a group of NZ MPs called NZ Parliamentarians for a Democratic Burma.

• Worked with the NZ Burma Support Group to support a volunteer teacher from the North Shore, Alex Abela, to teach English at the Tham Hin refugee camp west of Bangkok from May to August 2005. We are now working with Alex to find more volunteer teachers to fill a huge need in the camps.

• Helped the NZ Burma Support Group to organise a fundraising dinner at the Auckland University Marae on 19 June 2005 to mark the 60th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi. This event raised $5000, which was paid to the Burma Relief Centre in Chiang Mai for medical help for displaced people inside Burma.

• Continued to assist Karen and other Burmese people with issues such as seeking asylum in New Zealand, finding jobs and training, getting extra language help for children and adults, liaising with WINZ and Inland Revenue, applying to bring relatives and other Karen refugees into New Zealand, furnishing their houses and applying for NZ citizenship.

• Held a fundraising concert, "Music for Freedom", in the PumpHouse in Takapuna on 29 October 2005, in memory of our founding chairperson Hugh Fraser, who died on 9 May 2005, aged 85. We raised $4279 to support refugee projects, including $2412 for mobile health clinics for Karen people from Burma in Ratchaburi District, Thailand.

• Held a fundraising "Trivial Pursuits" quiz night at the Rawene Centre on 25 July 2008, raising $606 to support future needs of refugees in New Zealand.

Minutes of past meetings

Minutes

Financial statements

Financial statements