Horowhenua District Council providing low-cost training for community groups

First Aid training course facilitated by HDC's community development team for local groups to participate in. Photo / Horowhenua District Council

Providing opportunities for community groups to improve their resources and capabilities is a major objective for the community development team at Horowhenua District Council.

The Community Capacity Building programme provides relevant and useful training and workshops that are often low cost or even free.

Linda Lake, co-ordinator of local community organisation Te Awahou Kai, attended a morning workshop at the council offices last month which gave guidelines on the process of applying to be a charitable trust or incorporated society.

"The course facilitator was an amazing lady who made the information really relatable," said Lake. "By the time I walked out [at the end of the course] I felt like I knew exactly what to do."

A food safety training course run in 2020 for local community groups wanting to sell food for fundraising events. Photo / Horowhenua District Council

Rasella Fuauli, manager of Pasifika for Tomorrow, attended a full day food safety workshop at Poutu Marae with others from the Pasifika community as a step in the process to set up a market in the new year.

"The course was taught at a level that all of us could understand," said Fuauli, "it was very informative and we learnt things we weren't aware of [in terms of preparing food for sale]."

Despite Covid issues this year, HDC were still able to offer several other workshops as well – a first aid training course run at Te Whare Mahana and Poutu Marae and a mental health first aid course run at Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom.

The St John Mental Health First Aid course that was run in October, initiated by the local MenzShed groups. Photo / Horowhenua District Council

Lisa Campbell, HDC strategic communications manager, said two other workshops are in the planning phases for early 2022: Building Connected Whānau, which will be run by Parenting Place and I Can't Wait which will be run by Crohn's and Colitis NZ.

"Discussions with community members initiated the idea about how to build strong and resilient whānau," said Campbell, "while the I Can't Wait workshop was initiated by the Access and Inclusion forum."

If you have any questions about the Community Capacity Building programme, want to suggest future topics for workshops or to join the direct mail list for community training please email community@horowhenua.govt.nz or phone 06 366 0999.