The Flourishing Fellowship Begins

We kicked off the Flourishing Fellowship on a beautiful Wednesday morning with the arrival of 22 participants from around Aotearoa New Zealand. And sheesh, are these people awesome.

With ages spanning generation X and generation Y, we had a diverse range of people; students and professionals, community, health and public sector workers, techy and non-techy people, mothers and fathers. They all had one thing in common; a desire to see young people flourishing in New Zealand. Lifehack will be supporting the fellows as they translate this into action in their communities and workplaces.

“We are enough to do the things we need to do for our communities, and our communities are enough to do things for themselves” – Chelsea Robinson

From the first afternoon we created positive vibes and a safe space for all to immerse themselves in the learnings offered up. Fellows were introduced to Lifehack’s journey and principles, and the many amazing ventures that Lifehack is currently supporting.

Mentors : Carsten Grimm & Kaye-Maree Dunn

High-calibre contributors such as Carsten Grimm from the Mental Health Foundation and Kaye-Maree Dunne visited and taught. The Lifehack crew introduced a range of topics to add to the Fellows’ kete when working on wellbeing initiatives, such as start-up principles and design thinking, and our emerging best practice work on Quality, Safety, Ethics ad Rigour.

“When you are truly well yourself can you work effectively for and with others”- Gina Rembe

But the most valuable aspects were the stories we told each other about ourselves and our communities, and the Ako (peer-learning) sessions; mindfulness, gender, skills-sharing. There were many passionate and valuable conversations had over meals and in free time. The time spent on whakawhanaungatanga (building a sense of family or togetherness) invested in the hui laid a solid foundation for collaboration and inspiration-sharing moving forward.

Photo courtesy of Christina Curley

We finished up with some epic statements of intention from the fellows as they move into the coming weeks. In the meantime, online learning challenges are being sent out fortnightly to assist them in their journey.

We will all meet up again from the 14-16 August!