Welcome to Auckland!

Six times this year, on the day that our newly arrived families move (from the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre) into their new house we will be providing morning tea. At the morning tea, we will be giving each family a bucket full of cleaning products.

We have had some wonderful companies donate some of their products, which has meant that we only need $44 per bucket to buy the remainder of the things they need.

A bit more about me and this project:

My name is Emma Diack. I’m a mum of 3, and relieving teacher in Manurewa. I am super stoked to have the opportunity this year to be doing something extra cool - I have been given the opportunity by the Red Cross to be able to organise this 'Morning tea/bucket' project.

Many former-refugees will have experienced feeling really unwelcome in the countries they first went to for asylum – this is why it is really important that they experience a positive reception in Auckland.

When Auckland greets newly arrived former-refugees with a warm smile, some food to share and a generous welcome, we can hopefully offset some of the anxiety that families must be experiencing on ‘Moving Day’.

In addition to a welcoming morning tea, We will be giving each family a bucket of cleaning products. Although the families get a food grant from Work and Income to cover them until their first proper payment, the amount is rather small. By providing families with a bucket of cleaning products we can ensure that they can spend all of their grant on feeding their family. This is also another great way to show that we care. These families have lived through stuff most of us can’t even imagine, and I want us to show them that there are a whole bunch of New Zealanders who care about them. I am so excited that we can welcome families as they begin their new life here.

I went on the Countdown Website to figure out how much each bucket would cost. For these items (dishwashing liquid, dish brush, 2 packets of dish cloths, Spray and wipe, Handy Andy, Jif, toilet brush, bin liners, liquid hand soap) it currently costs $44

I will need to make up between 10-15 buckets for each moving day. Any buckets of products left at the end of the year will be used for the same purpose in 2017.

I am in the process of contacting businesses who may be able to donate products, and we are very grateful to Ecostore (http://www.ecostore.co.nz) who have agreed to donate 90 bars of soap.

Hopefully before the other moving days we will have more products donated and our need to fundraise for those buckets will be minimised.

Since beginning this page, Cottonsoft toilet paper have agreed to donate 96 x 12 long rolls of toilet paper! Thank you Cottonsoft!

And thank you MT Containers for the buckets!

Also a big thanks to Blockhouse Bay Baptist who donated loads of cleaning products for our first morning tea to make up the shortfall - as by the first one we had only raised $100 on here.

If you would like to check that this cause is legitimate, you can contact Heidi Cripps at Red Cross New Zealand.

If you want to find out more about me, here is a link to a newsletter with an article down the bottom about a project I was working on with World Vision a couple of years ago. http://www.worldvision.org.nz/media/151958/2013summerimpactnewsletterweb.pdf

You may be interested to learn that the ethnicities of the people that Auckland receives are: Iraqi, Afghani, Somali, Congolese, Sri Lankan Tamil, Palestinian, Syrian and also people from Myanmar.

And last of all, THANK YOU for being part of this exciting project. Just a few dollars from you, will mean so much to these beautiful people we will be welcoming. Thank you.