Ethnic women support Shakti group to open office in Te Puke

Shakti's service delivery manager Margie Agaled.

Shakti Ethnic Women's Support is to have a greater presence in Te Puke.

The organisation that supports ethnic migrant women is sharing an office in the War Memorial Hall.

Service delivery manager Margie Agaled says Shakti has been making efforts in the last six years to establish a more consistent and accessible services for Asian, African and Middle Eastern migrant women and children in Te Puke and neighbouring communities.

"Six years ago we started coffee sessions for migrant women in Constables Gallery. We were doing information sessions and having social gathering for ethnic migrant women.

"Eventually we were able to get a space in the [now closed] community centre for a year or so, but when that closed we basically ended up back in Tauranga."

While there have been some one-off events and English lessons in Te Puke, hosted by Te Puke Plunket, in many cases, those wanting to access Shakti services had to travel to Tauranga.

"We've been getting a lot of clients from Te Puke," says Margie. "It was very difficult to say we are supporting people in the Te Puke community when it takes significant travel time for either party to make a meeting happen — us travelling to Te Puke or clients travelling to Tauranga."

She says there is a significant number of migrant women in the Western Bay of Plenty.

"It's just that they are not visible. You see them when you go to specific sites like orchards, packhouses, day care centres, but you don't see them on the street a lot, for example, or being part of the community, at events or workshops, or at some other community-wide affairs.

"Somebody can be here for 10 years without improving their language skills, without being part of the community, because they already have pockets of ethnic communities and they are literally able to live in those pockets without being part of the wider, mainstream community."

She says the resulting isolation is one of the reasons why Shakti is creating simple avenues for ethnic women to get involved more, be more independent and be more confident.

"When they receive official communications, some of them have to have their children translate, going out on their own is not common. Most of our clients from Te Puke don't have cars and don't drive which is one of the reasons why being accessible is important to us."

"Those who return in the area after going through emergency support can now have an easier time when making arrangements to have follow-up meetings with us.

"Because Te Puke is such a small community people can just walk to the town centre — it's much more accessible.

"Plunket has been very good for English lessons and social gatherings, but have limited privacy for us to provide one-to-one support. Now that we have our own space we can control that more easily."

Shakti supports ethnic migrant women of Asian, African and Middle Eastern backgrounds to become more independent, increase their confidence and support them in settling in the community.

"If they are having family concerns or relationship issues, we are open to discussing these things with them," says Margie.

To make contact ring 0800 SHAKTI (0800 742 584).