Trish Isaac

Impact Narrative

Trish tells Speak Out her idea for OVER:

I belong to a nation wide free website called Neighbourly. It brings together our communities (my local suburb has about 150+ members alone) in each suburb as well as the suburbs that neighbour it. On the site we all post free stuff (eg: surplus vegetables, fruit, unwanted clothes, furniture etc), help needed (eg: I drive people around and run errands for those who have no transport), community news & activities, recommendations of good services or trades-people we have used, security issues(eg: prowlers, roaming dogs etc) or any other resource/ community issues. This site has proved to be incredibly effective in bringing together neighbours who didn’t even know each others names previously, all over NZ. With your books I can organize coffee meetings to share the book, talk about initiatives we can organize in our communities (eg: one of the areas in my city has set up a recycle center, all run by volunteers and done through the nieghbourly site) and generate education, interest, and motivation to take positive action. The books and any other resources you can provide can be shared on loan to neighbouring communities to do the same, & can be advertised through the neighbourly site from community to community nation wide.

As a result of the Neighbourly site our local community center has grown and flourished, having a free 3 course dinner every Thursday night for anyone, lots of classes and courses offered, a work-shed to recycle broken old bicycles etc into great really cheap working cycles again, worm farms, free garden plots to grow your own veggies or fruit, free seed sharing bank and seedlings, green houses being built, compost bins etc. The books can be based at the center as the focal point of a permanent display we can set up which will introduce the whole pollution/damage issue and offer ideas and ways we can implement to combat waste and pollution. Workshops and classes can then develop out of this with strategies to bring about change in everyday peoples habits and behaviours. Because NZ is such a green, clean, and beautiful lush country, most people have no real idea of how bad this is around the world. Our city library can also be used to set up a display in, using these books as a focal point for impact, (some of the pictures can be copied and enlarged as posters etc) to inform and encourage action, in conjunction with promoting the neighbourly site (which will provide free posters, pamphlets, invites etc) so it can be used as a free nation wide vehicle to get the message out there and co-ordinate responses, meetings, initiatives etc.”