We are ending our speaking tour of New Zealand hiking an impossibly long crescent extending beyond the horizon and which Captain Cook aptly christened Farewell Spit. The Spit helps shape Golden Bay which is at the top of the South Island to the west or left if you are looking at a map. Perhaps its golden beaches gave birth to the popular New Zealand expression, Good as Gold which reinforces the speaker’s guarantee to deliver what they promised.
We shared our New Zealand experience with albatrosses, penguins, seals, mountain parrots, choirs of happy songbirds, sheep, sheep, sheep and of course marvelous people - people who tread or in the New Zealand vernacular, ‘tramp’ gently on their majestic landscape and know how to take care of each other. Abundance infuses from the landscape into the realm of social innovation.
This extraordinary country, despite its size (4 New Zealand’s will fit handily into British Columbia) and small population (4.2. million, roughly the same size as British Columbia) continues to provide moral leadership to a struggling world. New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the vote and the world’s first old age pensions and social security system for unemployed people. They are a bilingual country – Maori and English. Every session we gave started with a Maori blessing. They pride themselves on harmonious biculturalism although periodic tensions in race relations do occur.
They are the standard bearers for a nuclear – free Pacific and refuse to allow nuclear warships into their harbours.
After 19 workshops and presentations in 10 days in 5 cities, the lens of disability inevitably shapes our impression. Nothing we saw here surprised us. We found inspiring, determined leadership among people with disabilities and parents; solid values; pockets of innovative supports; struggling families; inflexible programs; uneveningly dispersed services and perhaps most important curiosity. We found families hungry for solutions. We found a country awakening to the awareness of the first generation of New Zealanders with disabilities to outlive their parents. We encountered interest in the policy reforms PLAN has led in Canada – adult guardianship, the Registered Disability Savings Plan; social enterprise partnerships with financial institutions and contributing citizenship. In short all the necessary ingredients for a social revolution.
As we say farewell we have the impression of a country on the verge of another breakthrough. We leave with confidence the spirit of abundance which has led to ‘world firsts’ for other groups previously marginalized will soon extend to its citizens with disabilities and their families.
It’s as good as gold!
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