Support for initiative resource centre

Press, 17 February 1983, Page 6

Support for initiative resource centre

A $30,000 establishment grant for a self-help initiatives resource centre to fight unemployment was supported yesterday by the Canterbury United Council’s policy and resources committee.

Costing details of the centre will be sent to member local bodies immediately, since a two-storey city centre building being considered for the centre may not be available for rental much longer. Each local body has the power to opt out of the scheme, since it would be a new United Council junction, that could leave a core of local authorities facing a larger share each of the $30,000 being sought. Cr D. B. Rich said he doubted whether the resource centre would be worth while in achieving anything more than present organisations and groups working with the unemployed, but he said that Canterbury local bodies needed more information.

Ms Diana Shand, the consultant who first proposed the centre and has worked out proposed management details, said that anybody who was working in this field believed there was a tre- ' mendous need for it. She said that existing institutions, often through no fault of their own. repelled or deterred the very people they were meant to help. Cr T. J. Brocherie said that the United Council must become very much involved

in “‘the unemployment problem?’ The resource centre would be one way of doing that.

Cr Rich said he thought that local bodies would be disturbed by the lack of any concrete way of gauging the centre’s success.

“My belief- is that it will not create any new. jobs that, would not have been found or created through other agencies,” he said. The centre could end- 7 up duplicating their work.. . ' “There is little hard data on how it' would be evaluated,” he said. The committee’s chairman, Cr. T. M. Inch, said it would be difficult to evaluate the project before it was •started.

Ms; Shand said that organisations putting time and money into the centre would assess its success themselves. She estimated that the market value of community contributions, including the proposed $30,000 United Council grant, could be about $120,000 a year. An interim co-ordinator could be found until a fulltime worker was chosen and funded, perhaps through a Government special work scheme. Cr Vicki Buck said there was a real need for a resource centre. The Canterbury United Council had to decide whether it wanted to be in on it, or let somebody else do it.

“Nobody is saying that it is the only answer,” she said. Ms Shand suggested that

responsibility for the centre, and its control, could eventually go to a form of work , trusts, and co-operatives in the Canterbury region, which was at present being formed. The United Council could maintain its links through an advisory committee set upby the forum to / run the centre. Cr- C. N. Mackenzie,, the United Council’s chairman, said the council “should be able to: expect 100 per cent ! support” from local bodies once they had the additional cost information and understood that the $30,000; would not necessarily be required every year, but only until the resource centre was selfsupporting. “All I can say is that my council is prepared to try it,” he said. If the centre was not achieving anything more than was already being done after six months or a year, United Council financial support could be dropped.

The committee recommended a $5OOO regional contribution towards -a $37,000 ( study of the potential for outdoor pursuits .and recreation centres in New Zealand, which would promote a wide range of activities for local and overseas tourists.

Such a study would be funded by the Internal Affairs Department <4512,000), the Tourist and' Publicity Department ($10,000), the Auckland Regional Authority ($7000), the Canterbury United Council ($5000), and the Nelson Bays United Council ($3000).