24 July, 207.

Ethnic Community Engagement: General Elections

Auckland Regional Migrant Services Trust (ARMS) is ensuring that local ethnic communities are ‘election-ready’ and will have their voices heard by the key political parties prior to the upcoming General Election.

ARMS Chief Executive Officer, Rochana Sheward believes that active community engagement is needed to create awareness around the importance of civic participation and on understanding the electoral process amongst newcomer, migrant and resettled communities.

“ARMS is pleased to partner with the NZ Electoral Commission to engage with Auckland’s ethnic communities about the importance of exercising their right and responsibility to vote.”

“Through a series of community workshops, ARMS is informing our culturally diverse communities about the democratic right to vote, what this involves, and how their members can have a say as to who should govern our country,” said Ms Sheward.

ARMS will lead two Training of Trainers sessions for Community Champions, who will, after the training, assist their communities with enrolments, education and voter motivation.

Other General Election workshops will be run with Auckland’s African, Indian, Pacific, Middle Eastern, South East Asian, Filipino and Russian communities, with language support where necessary to support their understanding of the voting process including how to enrol, how they can cast a special vote if they wish, and how the MMP system works.

Unbiased information will be presented about the policies of each political party as they relate to key concerns of different ethnic communities. Through the community election workshops, ARMS will also be gathering up the views of ethnic communities about their most pressing issues. These will be presented at a multi-ethnic forum where representatives of all the major parties will have the chance to say what their party can offer Auckland’s ethnically diverse communities. Representatives from each community will be invited to participate in this forum to get a sense of which party would be best to represent their concerns.

https://settlement.org.nz/news/ethnic-community-engagement-general-elections/

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