Community needs to be at the heart of recovery planning

Hawke's Bay Regional Council chair Hinewai Ormsby with some of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council Rapid Rebuild team. Photo / Supplied

We can recover from the devastating impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle when we put community at the heart of recovery planning and seize the opportunity that comes from a crisis.

This wisdom, from Lianne Dalziel, former mayor of Christchurch, really resonates with me when thinking of the long journey we have ahead of us to heal and build resilience for our community.

Lianne and a team of people with expertise in the Christchurch earthquake recovery effort recently held a workshop with representatives of all five Hawke’s Bay councils to share their lessons learned.

Lianne also came to my home and village of Waiohiki and I showed her what we had experienced, how my people had been evacuated, and how our marae had become a civil defence hub.

Our community as a whole has lost so much, tragically lives have been lost and our hearts go out to their families and whānau. Those who have lost homes, businesses and livelihoods need our support to help them get their lives back together.

Lianne told us we aren’t alone as a region. This is a road well-travelled. We were there for Christchurch, and they will be here for us.

This is an opportunity to weave together traditional knowledge and local knowledge into planning recovery, Lianne reflected. What lessons can we learn from the Te Ao Māori world to support our community and the environment?

We are going to need to make hard decisions – and these are going to require high-trust relationships. Radical co-operation is the path forward.

One reflection I particularly love is that the wisdom of the community when combined with the knowledge of the experts always exceeds what one can offer without the other.

I have greatly admired the way the people of Hawke’s Bay have mobilised, got a shovel and just got stuck in, and provided for their neighbours in need. This is what we want to support and enable. Actual emergencies look more like people coming together than cities falling apart.

What does all this mean for Hawke’s Bay moving forward? Lianne’s counsel was both timely and reinforced the message that we need to think differently and take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us.

The governors of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council are committed to an independent review of the cyclone, and its impact on the people on the ground, to get the learnings that will help with our recovery.

Councils working together for the good of the region in “radical co-operation” can bring the best results for the entire region. Of course for this to succeed, “community needs to be at the heart of recovery planning”, combined with “the wisdom of the community when combined with the knowledge of the experts always exceeds what one can offer without the other”.

Your councils and the people that work for them, who live in the community and who have been impacted by the cyclone, have your best interests at heart and are doing the hard mahi every day to get Hawke’s Bay moving forward at pace again. Have faith in us and in them – we are all in this together.

- Hinewai Ormsby is Hawke’s Bay Regional Council chair