Category: Uncategorized

Our badminton sessions are proving to be one of the most popular activities. 

We were able to resume these sessions around October 2021 after a few long months of COVID lockdown. Getting together and playing badminton has been an important vehicle for our members/participants to stay positive, stay healthy physically and mentally, and support each other in true community spirit.

We have had wonderful participation from men so far. From July 2022, we also have a dedicated time slot especially for women and children. This is our next step plan in order to ensure that our programs are equitably accessible to a diverse group of people, so that everyone benefits.

On any given day, we have approximately 15-25 people playing. We hope that we are able to accommodate more people as they come. It is indeed great to see everyone enjoying a total workout. Keep up the excitement, team spirit, togetherness, and a bit of competition…

Thanks to the Waitākere Badminton Centre, Massey for providing us with the venue on Sunday mornings.

Our momo feast event was indeed an amazing and a memorable night. Our momo program happened on Saturday June 25th, 2022 at Massey Community Hub. Celebrating getting back together after a long COVID hiatus, nothing more would have been perfect other than enjoying momo, especially at the cold midwinter times in Auckland.

Momo is the ever favourite dumpling dish among all Nepali. Momo making is a multistep process, is time consuming and requires a considerable effort. The fun in it is really everyone lending their hands to get the job done, and then of course, getting to reap the benefits by eating the scrumptious momo in the end. Indeed this is what we witnessed at the program. We would like to thank all the members, family, and friends for contributing and sharing workload in the kitchen, for arranging all the resources to ease the pressure to cook significant amount of momos, wrapping the delicious goodness, setting up the venue, arranging healthy dose of entertainment in between, and for the clean up. We did it all together. Everyone truly showed that it was a family affair by engaging in every possible manner.

We were able to whakawhanaunga with many people who we previously had not met before. We made new connections with new friends, and those who we had met before, we were able to strengthen our relationships going forward.

We were too busy dealing with the organised chaos, and did not snap up many photos. Regardless, the good memories of the night will remain in our minds for a long time.

Each year, NZNA organises food donations to Auckland City Mission during Christmas time. This is our one way of giving back to our Auckland Community, and helping Aucklanders in need.

Thank you to NZNA members and friends who donated generously this time as well.

We are excited to announce that we will be restarting our NZNA yoga with our wonderful instructor Rina. We have taken a few months break from our weekly yoga sessions but they will be back up and running soon. The details are below:

When: Every Saturday starting 20th February 9:30am – 10:30am

Venue: Ranui Community Hall, 474 Swanson Road, Ranui, Auckland 0612

All ages and experience levels welcome, with a keen attitude.

We hope that everyone is well and enjoying the first few days of the greaters liberties of Level 2. This email is to keep our members up to date on what’s going on our community and what NZNA has been up to.

1. COVID-19 ALERT LEVEL 2

As you are all well aware, the country has moved into COVID-19 Alert Level 2. This is a huge moment of success, as it means that we as a team of 5 million have successfully contained the virus, and we can slowly begin to get on with our lives and restart the economy. This doesn’t mean we are in the clear yet though, and we should not get complacent as the worst thing that can happen is for us to climb back up the alert levels. Practicing good hygiene, avoiding large crowds and unnecessary travel if possible, and following the governments guidelines on gatherings are key to making sure the virus doesn’t come back.

We would also like to take this opportunity to send a HUGE Thank You to all the essential workers in our community, who have worked tirelessly throughout Level’s 3 & 4 to keep our country running.

For more info, see the link below
https://covid19.govt.nz/alert-system/alert-level-2/

2. Food Voucher delivery

NZNA had recieved funding to distribute food grocery vouchers to those members of our community that had been hit hard financially during the COVID-19 Crisis. During this period we have had 17 requests from around the country, and we will be delivering the food vouchers to these people in the coming days.

3. From Crisis to Opportunity – Rebuilding West Auckland with Waitakere Indian Association

This coming Tuesday evening at 8pm, Waitakere Indian Association and NZNA will be co-hosting a Facebook Live Q&A session with Minister Phil Twyford, Minister Carmel Sepuloni and MP Deborah Russel discussing how we can rebuild West Auckland socially and economically. Find the link to the Facebook event below. We hope to see you all there watching!

https://www.facebook.com/events/587672288820928/

4. COVID-19 survey from Bangladesh New Zealand Friendship Society.

NZNA has recieved a request from the Bangladesh New Zealand Friendship Society to share this with our members. We think that it’s a fantastic idea and we ask that everybody take a few minutes to fill out their survey.

How do you deal with COVID-19 restrictions? A short survey to better understand our community’s needs.

Are you a New Zealand based South Asian affected by COVID-19 restrictions?
Help us to understand how our communities cope with COVID-19 restrictions by taking part in our online survey. The survey is looking in three major clusters – financial, physical and social. Participating is possible until 30 May 2020.

Join the survey in this link
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WGNVDSC
Write us an e-mail:
cmrd.bnzfs2000@gmail.com

CMRD (Centre of Migrant Research and Development) of Bangladesh New Zealand Friendship Society Inc. (BNZFS)

5. e-Yoga with NZNA

We are currently continuing our online Yoga sessions with our fantastic instructor Rina. These sessions happen at 9:30am every Saturday morning via Zoom. All ages and fitness levels are welcome as long as you have a keen attitude and are willing to give it a go.

6. Ex-Presidents as Official Advisors

NZNA have asked all of our ex-Presidents (Shreedhar Basnyat, Raj Maharjan, Bhola Shrestha, Bedendra Adhikari and Bijay Regmi) to become Official Advisors to the organisation. Although we have always worked closely with our past presidents and have treasured their wealth of experience and connections, we wanted to formally recognize their continued contribution to the organisation by offering them this position. All of our ex-presidents have accepted the role.

Yoga sessions organised by NZNA every Saturday 9 – 10 am at Ranui Community Hall

We are grateful to hear such kind words from Dhurmus Suntali Foundation on their facebook page:

“नेपालबाट बाहिर जुन देशमा नेपालीहरु रहेपनि उहाँहरु हरेकलाई नेपालको निकै माया लाग्छ । र सबैलाई देश बिकाश भएको हेर्ने रहर हुन्छ । त्यस्तै रहर र सपना छ न्युजिल्याण्डमा रहनु भएका नेपालीहरुको पनि । न्युजिल्याण्डमा रहेको एक नेपाली समुह न्युजिल्याण्ड नेपलिज एसोसियसनले न्युजिल्याण्डमा रहेका नेपालीहरुबाट उठेको ६ लाख ४० हजार ५ सय ७६ रुपैया ३१ पैसा सहयोग रकम धुर्मुस सुन्तली फाउण्डेशनलाई सहयोग पठाउनु भएको छ । यस सहयोग प्रति हामी निकै कृतज्ञ छौं । सम्पुर्ण सहयोगी मनहरु र सहयोग संकलन र हामीसम्म पुर्याउन सहयोग गर्नुहुने न्युजिल्याण्ड नेपलिज एसोसिएसनलाई हार्दिक धन्यवाद ब्यक्त गर्न चाहान्छौं ।”

On May 14, 2017, we transferred transferred NZ$ 9,429.35 to the bank account of Dhurmus Suntali धुर्मुस सुन्तली फाउण्डेशन.

This amount has been transferred on behalf of the entire “Nepalese Community in NZ”.

We thank each and every one of you for making this a success.

We thank people from New Zealand for their generosity in supporting flood victims in Nepal. Supports were provided also through couple of other organizations in Zealand and together we could assist thousands of people.

Our initial priority in raising donations for Nepal flood victims was to provide them basic items of necessity such as food, medicine & building temporary shelter etc. We were evaluating the situation closely and observed that numerous organization and common people came up for this support in terms of relief materials which really helped the flood victims in their immediate need. The president of New Zealand Nepalese Association, Mr. Shreedhar Basnyat was in Nepal during the period, and was in regular communication with the people working in field. From the field information, we noted that there are hundreds of small school age children affected by flood and did not have study materials to go to schools. They were not focused on initial relief works and we thought that these children need support so that they could resume their schools.

The donation collected through Give a Little was expected to be received in between 20 to 25 September. We need to thank Mr. Basnyat also for lending the fund to the organization so that support could be provided immediately. We later reimbursed him once funds were credited by Give a Little.

We were able to coordinate with a volunteer organization in Nepal Pragyik Bidhyarthi Parishad Nepal, who were working in flood districts. They identified five schools in three districts where students were badly affected. While selecting the schools, we also had to take care that we spend as little as possible for transportation and logistics so that maximum amount could be used for the students.

Distribution Details

We could support around 1305 students in five different schools of three district as mentioned below:

1. Saptari District

a. School- Janta Ma. Bi., 300 students supported.

2. Mahottari District

b. School- Dorik Ma. Bi., 360 students supported.

c. School- Balgyan Adharbhut Bidhyalaya, 280 students supported.

d. School- Yagyabalkya Adharbhut Bidhyalaya- 140 students supported.

3. Rautahat District

e. School Saraswati Pra. Bi, 225 students supported.

The focus was on providing minimum required materials, so that we could reach as much students as we could. Each student supported were provided with: 5 copies, 1 ballpen, 1 pencil, 1 eraser and 1 sharpener.

Financial Details

The financial details are:

1. Total Fund credited by Give a little- $1062, Cash received- $100. Total fund received- $1162, equivalent to Nepalese Rs. 87,150 (at exchange rate of $1=Rs.75)

2. Expenditures:

a) Copies- 6000 no. X Rs.11.5=Rs. 69,000

b) Pen- 1200 no. X Rs.3.5= Rs. 4,250

c) Pencil- 1200 no X Rs.3.5= Rs.3,000

d) Eraser- 1200 no X Rs.2.5= Rs.3,000

e) Sharpner- 1200 X Rs. 2.5=Rs. 3,000

f) Transportation= Rs. 6,620

Total Expenditure= Rs. 88,870

Excess of Expenditure over Donation collected- Rs.1,720

The team was able to negotiate bulk purchase discount and were also able to request additional discount on grounds that the purchase was for good cause.

Overall, a support of $100 was used for around 102 students, thus making it $1 per student.