City missions in Wellington, Auckland and now Christchurch are benefiting from an online food bank provided by a fundraising website called Fundy. “Basically we sell the products online, people go on and buy the products, and at the end of the month all of the products that have been purchased [on the online food bank] Read more
A friend recently posted on Facebook “Sleeping in the lounge with the children to stay warm….Brrrr”. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or feel sad about this. I can relate to the fact that it is a cold winter and my old 1950’s cottage is a challenge to heat up even with several heaters on Read more
The need to send remittances home makes it very difficult for for Pacific Island migrants living in Australia to save and invest in assets or the education of their own families. It creates enormous pressure often leads to resentment. Queensland University Associate Professor Richard Brown said Samoans, Tongans and Cook Islanders have a culture of Read more
A new online game has been launched by a nonprofit organization devoted to ending extreme poverty. The game, Survive125, helps players to get some idea of what it is like to live in extreme poverty, a reality for 1.3 billion people, by challenging them to survive one month on $1.25 a day. While playing the part Read more
Pacific Island churches have supported the Advance Pasifika March which took place in Auckland last Saturday. The call to march came from the Auckland City Council appointed Pacific Peoples Advisory Panel, which says it wants to stop being a “rubber stamp” for council policies and create an independent Pacific forum. The chairman of the Advisory Read more
In a book called “Wage Theft in America,” the author calculates that wage theft costs employees $100bn at a minimum each year and possibly up to $200bn. The way to steal from those who live in poverty is to do so “in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators,” according Read more
Short-sighted policy changes, taking with one hand while giving with the other, may leave vulnerable groups short-changed in this year’s Budget, says Catholic social justice agency Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand. Caritas Director Julianne Hickey says the Catholic agency assesses the impact of Budget measures through the lens of the common good: what will contribute to Read more
Poor Fijians are becoming poorer because of the traditional demands of village and church, says Father Kevin Barr from the People’s Community Network. He says that the number of people living in squatter settlements is likely to increase. Many now living in the settlements used to work in the sugarcane industry and have moved into Read more