The best way to develop your community, hapū or iwi is to build on the strengths that are already within it.
The North East Valley already had a community programme, The Valley Project.It was a good starting point for exploring what was already happening in the community and useful in building a picture of the strengths, skills and resources available in the community to help achieve shared community goals.
Community dinners were already a feature, so the Valley Project used these to get more ideas from their community on what they love in the area and what they'd like to see more of.
The Valley News community newsletter was an important asset that was already supporting community-building activity in the Valley.
When the Valley Project started taking a community-led development approach, they used existing assets and ways of bringing people together to communicate with their community, start conversations, and get more input from the community.
With community-led development, we work within five guiding principles developed by Inspiring Communities: