Mapping the Future
(Community-led Recovery)
Do you have ideas for your local area as you recover from last year's storms and flood?
Participate now in the online conversation for the Beach Haven community
⭐ Want us to run a session for your group?
Get in touch with us if you have a group of twenty or more who would like to participate at your clubrooms, place of worship, or marae.
⭐ Background to the project
The anniversary weekend floods, hurricane Gabrielle and other severe weather events have affected many people across Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland. In the Kaipātiki region, Northcote Point, Birkenhead and Beach Haven were particularly badly hit, with a high number of homes applying for Auckland Council categorisation.
Many individuals, communities and whānau are still suffering because of their housing situation, their financial situation, their wellbeing, their sense of place and their future security.
Mapping the Future is part of a community-led recovery process, where everyday people are invited to be actively involved in decisions affecting the future of their community. Through in-person events and online interaction, we will provide opportunities for people to express their needs and share their ideas, knowledge and resources.
The Mapping the Future workshops and survey provide a forum for people to share their aspirations for the future, including ways that they might take the initiative to improve their world, to increase community connection, enjoyment of our place and connection to nature. We will look at what next steps we might take to make these ideas a reality.
This process is supported by the Tāmaki Makaurau Recovery Office as part of a community-led recovery initiative across the region.
⭐ Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between recovery, resilience and emergency preparedness?
Response: Response refers to the decisions and actions taken to deal with the immediate effects of a disaster. These actions and decisions will be to protect life, reduce suffering, contain and mitigate the impacts of the emergency, protect property, and create the conditions for communities to recover.
Preparedness: Emergency preparedness refers to actions and measures introduced before the onset of an emergency to 1) improve the effectiveness of disaster response, and 2) to mitigate disaster impacts on people and communities. It is about the measures taken to prepare for a disaster in order to reduce the impacts on people and property and to enable individuals and communities to recover quickly.
Preparedness includes activities such as contingency planning, the stockpiling of equipment and supplies, setting up and strengthening early warning systems, strengthening communication systems and processes, and the development of arrangements for coordination, evacuation and public information.
Readiness: Readiness is related to preparedness and is often used interchangeably. The term “readiness” describes the ability to quickly and appropriately respond to an emergency when required. At a household level this could look like having a detailed understanding of local hazards and risks, having an emergency grab-bag prepared, an agreed meeting place with family members. At the wider community level, this is about ensuring systems, stakeholders, and processes are ready and prepared to quickly and efficiently respond to an emergency when it arises.
Recovery: Recovery refers to the coordinated efforts of supporting affected communities in the reconstruction of the built environment and the restoration of emotional, social, economic, built and natural environment wellbeing following an emergency.
Recovery may take months or even years to complete, as it seeks to support affected communities to rebuild their lives. At its centre, recovery is the complex process of individuals and communities who have been impacted by a disaster event working to resolve the impacts that the event has had on the trajectory of their lives. Recovery provides an opportunity to improve aspects beyond previous conditions by enhancing social infrastructure, natural and built environments, and economies.
Recovery is intertwined with disaster risk reduction and readiness and can provide an opportunity to enhance resilience and improve upon pre-disaster inequities.
Rather than working to return to pre-disaster ‘normal’, recovery is about how complex community systems repair or develop social, political, and economic processes, institutions, and relationships that enable it to function in the new context within which it finds itself. Successful recovery will do this in a way that reduces future disaster risk, and as such, must consider vulnerabilities and inequities within the community that exacerbate disaster impacts and risk.
Community-led recovery: Evidence from across Aotearoa and internationally shows that successful recovery for communities is best achieved when the affected communities are empowered and supported to exercise a high degree of involvement in setting priorities and a vision for recovery and leading community-led initiatives.
Resilience: Resilience refers to the ability to anticipate and resist the effects of a disruptive event, minimise adverse impacts, respond effectively, maintain or recover functionality, and to learn and adapt in a way that allows for thriving.
The International Federation of the Red Cross defines resilience as “the ability of individuals, communities, organisations or countries exposed to disasters, crises and underlying vulnerabilities to anticipate, prepare for, reduce the impact of, cope with and recover from the effects of shocks and stresses without compromising their long-term prospects”
In an emergency, disaster resilient individuals and communities are capable of:
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keeping themselves and their families safe from harm
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adapting to changes in the physical, social and economic environment,
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being self-reliant if external resources are limited or cut off, and
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learning from the experience to be more prepared next time
What are the next steps – what will you do with the information you collect?
The information and ideas that are brought together through the Mapping the Future project are by community and for community. They will be presented back to the community to guide potential action and initiatives at a community-level.
Through the Storm Response Fund, there may be seed funding for some initiatives.
What is the Recovery Office?
The extreme weather events of early 2023 have had an adverse effect on communities across Tāmaki Makaurau. The Auckland Council-led Tāmaki Makaurau Recovery Office has been established to coordinate the Auckland-wide repair and rebuild efforts on behalf of the Auckland Council group, New Zealand government, and community partners and stakeholders.
Where can I get information about the categorisation process?
Visit the Recovery Office website’s FAQ.
Where can people affected by the flooding events get support?
Visit the Recovery Office’s support service directory.
Book in to talk to a Navigator about any ways you have been affected by the weather events:
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Fill in the online referral form
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Phone: 09 884 2070
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At the Navigator drop-in clinics at a community facility near you
Why is PFK leading this process?
PFK's vision is Kaipātiki - a place where community and the natural environment flourish.
We do not see ecological restoration as separate from the life and wellbeing of community and we work to strengthen both, working closely with local communities across the rohe.
As communities begin to face changing environmental, social and economic realities brought by the climate and ecological crisis, what we understand by 'conservation' is being updated and PFK understands the importance of working in community towards adaptation and resilience.