Community Well-Being Projects

PLACE-MAKING & COMMUNITY EMPOWERED PROJECTS

We believe strengthening the connection between people and the places they live in raises the spirits & mental health of communities which in turn contributes to growing a more thriving community. We create, support, partner and provide the vehicle required for community led projects (including our own) to thrive & grow. Some of our current projects include:

The Pātaka Kai Open Street Pantry Movement
Pataka Kai Open Street Pantries Website
Pataka Kai Open Street Pantries FB Page
Pataka Kai Open Street Pantries Group

Increasing Civic Engagement through digital platforms
Southside WOKE

The Ōtara Kai Village

The Ōtara Kai Hub Village is a social eco sustainable space focused on enabling families experiencing food insecurity to have dignified access to affordable nutritious food in their neighbourhood. It also recognizes that the 'Social' is a vital part of the change process and that food is a powerful connector and catalyst to expanding wider social, economic and cultural opportunities for individuals, families and communities.

The Ōtara Bike Burb

The Ōtara Bike Burb is a resident led community bike hub setup to support road bike pathway opportunities for local youth, fix/repair/redistribute bikes back into the community, provide advocacy and support for local road bike riders, to encourage the community to ride safety, to get out explore our community and to support changing the negative narrative around road bikes in Otara.

The Manukau Bike Burb

The MBB is the partner bike hub to the Ōtara Bike Burb. It has been created to help support improving cycle ways in our main city centre and connecting safe cycle ways for our surrounding suburbs to here. There are a lot of awesome places and spaces to visit here in the Manukau City centre and it is fast become the next Auckland City especially with the increase of tertiary students to the area.

The Ōtara Mara Kai

The new Ōtara Mara Kai community garden is a "non-plot" allocated garden for the Ōtara community. This community garden is managed by kaitiaki who live in Ōtara. A portion of the harvest goes back to the Ōtara Kai Village social kai store for re-distribution back into our community, some used to make free community meals via the OKV Cafe and the rest to the wider community. One of our objectives is to help expose our local Māori through old traditions of food and growing, how to eat well and nourish the body and soul through Te Ao Māori practices.