Increasing need for rural support

East Coast Rural Trust Co-ordinator Jane Tylee looks delighted to receive a cheque from Dannevirke Host Lions representative Terry Hynes to help fund her vital work.

When circumstances beyond your control lead to rural business crisis — be it financial, climatic or personal — the East Coast Rural Support Trust is ready to assist. The Trust co-ordinators are rural people with local knowledge and experience.

East Coast Rural Support Trust Tararua Co-ordinator Jane Tylee visited Dannevirke Host Lions Club.

Jane and her husband run a sheep and beef farm at Makuri. Her father had experience of the Foot and Mouth crisis in Britain at the turn of the century.

She feels she is qualified to help the rural sector in crisis and has been the East Coast Rural Support Trust Co-ordinator for Tararua since 2016.

She said it is a very stressful role but she feels privileged to do it.

Her role is two-fold. Firstly she has to co-ordinate events in a disaster such as earthquakes, floods and droughts, working with Civil Defence and Horizons Regional Council as the rural voice. In particular it is the support she can provide through appropriate agencies to provide tax relief, work and income funding and special needs grants.

The Mycoplasma bovis threat falls into this category, helping farmers cope with this threat to their livelihood.

The second and larger part to her role is "peace-time work", providing help when circumstances affect rural people.

She provides free, confidential advice and co-ordinates rural professionals to help.

She says depression is the most common issue she has to deal with. Since October 2016 she has worked with 86 clients, some of whom are still her clients. She outlined the symptoms — predominantly feeling down or hopeless, having little interest or pleasure in doing most things on most days over the past month — and the causes — isolation, loneliness, the weather, finances — in rural areas. There are brochures available from the Ministry of Health which discuss these.

Her clients must be referred either by themselves, family, friends or doctors to receive assistance. The Trust's flier says early intervention of a Rural Co-ordinator can pay dividends and produce negotiated solutions which minimise losses and disruptions, restore confidence and dignity and facilitate either rehabilitation or restructuring.

Good Yarn Workshops have been an effective way of overcoming the isolation and the 16 organised so far have offered support to provide farmer resilience and to "treat depression like it's a damned flu".

The East Coast Rural Support Trust brought Doug Avery, author of the best seller The Resilient Farmer, to a packed Dannevirke Services and Citizen's Club in November 2017.
The East Coast Rural Trust is always seeking funds and Dannevirke Host Lions made a donation.

For further information contact the Trust on 0800 787 254.