Turning The Curve Teaching Refugee Background Women To Drive
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Wellington
We have been inundated with beautiful offers of support since the tragedy in Christchurch. Many of our supporters, and members of the public are searching for a way to help former refugees living in Aotearoa NZ. If you would like to support a programme, which makes a lasting positive impact on the lives of vulnerable refugee women who have settled in Aotearoa NZ, please give generously to our Turning the Curve refugee background women's driving programme.
Turning the Curve helps women from refugee backgrounds living in the Wellington region get their full driving licence.
For many of us Kiwis, it is hard to imagine the difference something as simple as a driver’s licence can make. But for many of our refugee background women, it can mean the difference between loneliness, and making a home here. Driving empowers some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable women to learn English, get a job, provide for their families, and feel fully at home in their communities.
As one of our recent graduates said, ‘getting my licence has changed everything, I feel like a real Kiwi woman, because real Kiwi women have their licence’.
The programme runs by women supporting women- we link a refugee background woman with a Kiwi woman volunteer, who accompanies her on her journey to obtaining her full licence. Friendships for life are often made between volunteer and learner.
We urgently need to raise $35,000 by 30th June to keep the programme running. Please give generously- every donation will make a huge difference to the lives of New Zealand's most vulnerable women.
About us
ChangeMakers Resettlement Forum (CRF) is a rights-based, non-government organisation (NGO) working alongside more than 23 refugee-background communities, predominantly in the Greater Wellington and Wairarapa regions (Hutt Valley, Porirua, Wellington and Masterton) but also in Levin and Palmerston North. Our objective is to see New Zealanders of refugee background fully participating in life in Aotearoa New Zealand.
We provide a wide range of community development programmes, which are ever evolving and growing; carry out client centred research into the challenges and successes or refugee settlement; and work in advocacy across all levels of society to facilitate systems change, in order to ensure former refugees are included and empowered to engage and positively contribute to their local communities. Our programmes and activities include:-
-Turning the Curve and Driving for Inclusion - supporting former refugees obtain their New Zealand driver licence.
-Community Development - helping former refugee families to find positive solutions, that empower them to thrive.
-Group work – including women’s groups, sports, youth activities, workshops to allow for upskilling and connection.
-World Refugee Day & Change the Narrative project – celebrating the difference and contribution that former refugees make.
-Leadership Council Meetings, Youth Leaders Meetings and Community Hui – strengthening communities and ensuring our work is driven by their self-identified needs.
-Advocacy and social and systematic change – raising awareness and challenging the systems that keep former refugees marginalised.
Underpinning our work is a strengths-based approach, which emphasises the positive contribution former refugees make to Aotearoa.
We are governed by a Board comprised of former refugees. Working in the sector since 2001, we play a significant role in national refugee resettlement and are key members of the national Refugee Alliance.
Our vision stems from a recognition by former refugees that their voices needed to be heard, incorporating the ‘nothing about us without us’ principle. Working alongside former refugees we promote the many positive contributions that people from former refugee backgrounds bring and ensure that the rights and needs of Kiwis from refugee backgrounds are at the forefront of policy making and implementation.
Funding will ensure that we have the staff and infrastructure to continue running our essential programmes and activities, thus fulfilling our mission of seeing ‘New Zealanders of refugee-background fully participating in New Zealand life.’
Use of funds
$60 can provide a refugee background woman with her first ever driving lesson.
$200 can fully train a volunteer with the skills to support a refugee background woman.
$1000 can pay for a year's driving lessons for a refugee background woman.
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