How is the Mission4Men men's ministry lending a hand during COVID-19?

4 Islanders, an afakasi Maori and an Australian walk into a garage… and MISSION4MEN Men's Ministry is born.

MISSION4MEN is a charitable trust in the central region of New Zealand. Established in 2019, the faith-based Trust was established to create environments for men to connect together positively, to challenge themselves to grow as effective role models, and to contribute to their environments as good men walking on this planet. Within this framework they also had the strong value messaging as a basis for developing men as leaders in life.

The Trust had received funding from Pasefika Proud to run projects that encouraged men to treat their whole families with love, honour and respect. This included Pasifika Father-Son Boxing Bootcamps where whole fanau were able to come and watch their father, son or brother “get in the ring” to be better, to be disciplined, to walk stronger in their places and spaces of life.

MISSION4MEN have also run a “Fanau Fun Day” outreach with the aim of creating connection in the community and giving space to the message of loving the whole family. Based on engagement and relationship, people from different communities were able to join up, relax and have some connection at the local Lido, around a BBQ, playing volleyball and making simple connections. 

These events had been delivered as part of the Mosaic Seventh Day Adventist Community Church, but more importantly, were delivered in partnership with SnapBackBoxing Zenith Fitness. It led to other interventions in the community such as Karakia Boxing, and then the Men’s Hikoi Group in partnership with Sport Manawatu, and from this we started to see other men's focus groups evolve around the city.

The MISSION4MEN team applied to Lottery Community for funding to continue men’s developmental projects and were awarded $2,000 of the $9,950 they requested.

And then COVID-19 came to NZ.

The announcement of the Government's Level 4 lockdown saw the team step in to look after their main church and sister churches' matua. Twelve small churches in all.  The simple care packages delivered reassured the matua that there were support systems in place to care for them during this time.

The two project leads – Pasifika men, one local businessman and one regional Community Advisor – started fielding contacts from local Pasifika communities and then from regional Pasifika communities for support as people had lost jobs, were cut off from their natural support systems, and couldn’t access the council welfare support systems easily.

The group took it on to do what they could with what they had – they repurposed the Lottery Community funding, applied and received Ministry of Social Development funding of $5,000, received a donation from the Mosaic Seventh Day Adventist Church and accepted donations from the public.  Support for Pasifika communities in the region was streamed elsewhere but was inadequate for the needs in our communities. Because of established relations these communities reached out to MISSION4MEN for support.

As MISSION4MEN kept putting care packages into the community as requested, it evolved to serve mainstream communities, migrant communities, Pasifika communities with Māori communities being served by the iwi.

What started with 12 packs being delivered to our church matua on 24 March has escalated to 800+ care packages being delivered across the region, 708 into Palmerston North with 572 of those supporting Pasifika fanau. They didn't just go to Pasifika fanau, people from other nations such as Burmese, European, Cambodian, Bhutanese communities across Whanganui, Marton, Bulls, Feilding, Palmerston North and Levin.

Partnerships came to the table from relationships established over the past five years organically seeing their place to contribute.  These included:

• Integrated Whanau Approach team - from the Manawatu Iwi and led by Rarite Mataki; this the was key that allowed us to scale output with the key philosophy that mirrored our own fanau-centric / 'hands and feet' community-led approach. 
• MASHTrust Luck Venue - a mental health provider with housing access who came into donate food, blankets, baby necessities and transporters.
• SnapBackBoxing Zenith Fitness - came forward with food and transporters.
• MANAWATU ABUSE INTERVENTION NETWORK came forward to support need as appropriate.
• SportManawatu - organising wellbeing activities for communities
• Community people, community donations, community support

What started with a limited $10,000 budget has provided an estimated $45,000 of food to families and homes in those communities.

Key to the success is the community led / fanau-whanau centric and simple Polynesian mandate: Feed the people – Take care of the village. We are seeing the fanau representative, the hands and feet of the community, coming to the forefront and understanding the importance of their input in the whole process. The ownership for the transformation of the community sits safely in those hands.

What we see in the results of those that are supporting and participating in the project through this crisis time: Joy / Peace / Fulfilment / Identity. A real balance for the psycho-social needs of the community, for such a time as this.

The aim of MISSION4MEN was to set an environment for our men to stand up, step in, and contribute, to grow that sense of self, that sense of positive contribution to Pasifika fanau in the Manawatu/Whanganui region. With very little time and money, MISSION4MEN has been able to nurture relationships across sectors of the community to access much needed resources. Our small Pasifika-led group has been able to mobilise with volunteers and connect Pacifika fanau with food packs, blankets and warm clothes. This has been a powerful project because it has been about Pasifika determining what is important for Pasifika and then coming up with the solutions to make it happen.