Neighbours Day spurs community spirit

Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Jo Goodhew is encouraging people living in cities to make a special effort to get to know their neighbours on Neighbours Day this weekend.

“There are challenges to building a sense of community, especially in busy cities where many people may barely know their neighbours,” says Mrs Goodhew.

“Most of us remember the close community spirit of our neighbourhoods as children, when there was always someone close at hand to share a cuppa or turn to in an emergency.

“Resident-led initiatives like the Inner City Forum project in Auckland aim to connect the 30,000 city dwellers and particularly those in high rise apartments, or ‘vertical neighbourhoods’. I am told one of their main challenges is finding shared spaces for the vertical community to gather.

“Mount Roskill has set ‘growing the community connectedness’ as a top priority. Their neighbourhood street party competition ‘Roskill Loud and Proud’ is an activity all neighbourhoods could look to replicate.”

Neighbours Day runs over the weekend of 28 – 29 March, and is New Zealand’s biggest celebration of neighbourliness and focusses on building stronger communities by encouraging people to get to know their neighbours and support local neighbourhoods.