Rachael – Grafton
“The last message that I sent to someone was on Twitter; my friend who I know from work has been feeling a little bit down so I just sent him a little message sending him a bit of a virtual hug.
He seems to alternate a little bit from feeling really happy to feeling quite sad. People just talk about how they’re feeling but they don’t always give you any detail, and it’s quite nice to, without knowing the detail, be able to support people just generically I suppose.
I don’t know my neighbours… I don’t know my neighbours from my work. I don’t know my neighbours where I live. A place where you can see humanity in action though, is at the central library – where we are. This is a place that’s welcome to everybody – they sit and interact and experience each other’s cultures and learn from each other. So I see it here every day and that feeds my soul a little bit in that space.
Most communities have one. The key thing about the library is that you are welcome here, and you don’t need to have an intention – you don’t need to have money. It’s a space for people to come and just be, but it’s also the place where you can come and learn, better yourself, have access to things that you mightn’t have access to in other places. It’s paid for by rates, so it’s about the community who pay rates support that access which is a beautiful thing, and, you know, we’ve got a very diverse CBD.
We’ve got rough sleepers, we’ve got new migrants, we’ve got people who have retired into apartments, and if you step inside the library you just see this huge diverse range of people interacting together respecting each other and using the space the way they want to. It’s an amazing thing, and we offer specific programming for groups such as rough sleepers that have been really successful and helped me understand the people in our community better. So there’s a benefit to working in the library and being on the other side of the programs as well.
I know that Auckland Council have these series of talks called Conversations with Auckland, and that there’s one 23rd of this month about homelessness in Auckland. It’s something on Council’s radar and something that we’re working together with parts of the CBD community and Government to solve.”
