How well do you know your neighbour?
How well do you know your neighbours? Neighbours Day Aotearoa 2013 is your opportunity to get to know them better. Held over the weekend of 23-24 March, Neighbours Day is about turning strangers into neighbours and streets into neighbourhoods.
Initially launched in Auckland in 2009, Neighbours Day Aotearoa became a nationwide initiative in 2011. It aims for streets to have a get-together of some sort, whether it is a barbeque, a street-wide garage sale, a potluck dinner or a picnic in the park.
Barbara MacLennan is the Bay of Plenty regional convenor for Inspiring Communities, one of the four national Neighbours Day campaign partners. She says, "Great neighbours are the foundation of great communities and Neighbours Day Aotearoa is a wonderful celebration and catalyst for people to be more connected to the people who live around them. We urge people to get involved and sign up at www.neighboursday.org.nz where there are heaps of resources and ideas to help. What you do can be really simple, such as knocking on the neighbour’s door and introducing yourself, sharing home grown veges or baking, or organising a small street kaputi". Neighbourhood Support is another campaign partner and Whakatane Co-ordinator Ron Averes is enthusiastic. "We know that communities are much safer when people know and care about their neighbours. It’s nice for kids to have neighbours that will say hello to them and it’s also good to know that people are looking out for one other."
He says that Neighbours Day is a great excuse to build more of those local connections. "I’ve heard of one man who is planning on going fishing, and dropping off some snapper to his next door neighbour. It’s not hard to do something simple like that, but the rewards can be huge ".
Lifewise and the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand are other partners in the campaign. Together they have developed a national website (www.neighboursday.org.nz) that features local stories, and a range of resources available to businesses, community organisations and the general public. These include posters, flyers, invitations, ideas, and step-by-step guides on getting your neighbourhood event off the ground.
Barbara and Ron are keen to see lots of Eastern Bay of Plenty communities registered as " places on the Aotearoa map" where people are planning to do something on Neighbours Day 2013.
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