Mt Eden Rotary was delighted to donate 80 copies of the New Zealand Road Code and 65 Māori language books (“Raupo Pocket Dictionary of Modern Maori” , “Maori Made Easy”, and “A Maori Word a Day”) to the Mt Eden Corrections Facility
 
Mt Eden Rotary was delighted to donate 80 copies of the New Zealand Road Code and 65 Māori language books (“Raupo Pocket Dictionary of Modern Maori” by P.M. Ryan, “Maori Made Easy by Scotty Morrison”, and “A Maori Word a Day” by Hemi Kelly) to the Mt Eden Corrections Facility (MECF) which was represented by Zoe Cornelius – Librarian and Ghissy Lee – Regional Volunteer Coordinator.
 
Last year, we donated 100 Usborne Illustrated English Dictionaries to the MECF, building on similar dictionaries donations in 2015 and 2007.
 
Education and literacy are key Rotary goals.
 
The Usborne Illustrated dictionaries are used predominantly by MECF’s literacy volunteers who work 1-1 with learners. Any learner is offered a copy and if they choose to keep it, then the volunteers add it to their property list to ensure it stays with them.
 
Road codes are used by anyone wishing to study towards their learners licence at the MECF onsite – the volunteers can provide testing through the AA a few times a year – so any participant can work towards this. The road codes are used alongside workbooks and flash cards to ensure that they can retain as much information as possible. The road codes are really valuable as many people in MECF’s care may have driving disqualifications or just have never sat for their licence. Once they obtain a licence, it is a lot easier for them to secure employment upon release.
 
Māori language books fit right into the volunteers’ focus through the Corrections Strategy (Hokai Rangi) which sees a focus on Māori & Pasefika offenders going forward – due to the percentage that they make up within the prison population.
 
The MECF team is seeing a larger focus on learning te reo and Tikanga Māori in many of their units and the Māori Made Easy, dictionaries and Word a Day books can be provided to the participants wishing to study further in their own time or in groups. These are becoming increasingly popular.
 
The funds to purchase the road codes and Māori language books that Mt Eden Rotary donated were raised via a Nalini Singh book launch and signing event for ARCHANGEL’S WAR on 24 Sep 2019 and a Helen Laurenson book talk and signing event for The HISTORY OF MOUNT EDEN on 22 Oct 2019 which were both held at the Epsom Community Library. We also had the support of matching grants from the Rotary Foundation (Rotary District 9920) and from the K.C. Loo Fruit Centre fundraising stall.
 
Thanks very much to everyone whose help allowed Mt Eden Rotary to make this donation to the Mt Eden Corrections Facility possible, including Nalini Singh, Helen Laurenson, Samara McDowell and Pam Bathgate, Epsom Library, Hachette NZ, Chapter Book and Tea Shop, Rotary Foundation (District 9920) and K.C. Loo Fruit Centre!

Sourced from the Mt Eden Rotary Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MtEdenRotary