The Christchurch suburb of Shirley farewelled a favourite son this week.
Steve Jones-Poole, founder of the Shirley Village Project was farewelled on Monday with birthday cake, a gunge-dunking and a much-needed haircut..... to help raise money for the local community.
"It's been so much fun having all the chat around the community about it, and seeing people getting excited about watching it grow and get scruffy over the year and then going, right now we're going to put some money in and get a little cut off."
The Shirley Village Project was established in 2019 as a community-led grass-roots up approach to solving community and social issues.
"Residents are the experts and the ones that bring about the change. So it's their ideas that come up and they get to put them in place and be part of it."
The group operates in collaboration with the Shirley Community Trust, which has been working in the neighbourhood for 20 years.
Jones-Poole's job as community development activator will be integrated into roles carried out by the four other team members.
"This isn't actually about the village project. This is about the residents being empowered to make change themselves and organizations coming in and supporting that to happen. So we don't need a heap of people leading us. It's actually the residents empowered that are making the change."
He said Shirley was a thriving community, and believes he's leaving it in good hands, although he hasn't ruled out returning in future, if his stint at farming doesn't work out.
- By Geoff Sloan
- Made with the support of NZ On Air
