Simon Draper's February 2022 update
Welcome to my first Update for 2022. Entering our third year of the pandemic, we’ve all had our resilience tested — and we’ve all become excellent at rescheduling events.
Our thoughts are with the communities who have had their plans to celebrate the Lunar New Year disrupted. Many people worked hard to prepare for the 2022 Auckland Lantern Festival, which we are a founding partner of, and Wellington’s Lunar New Year Festival.
We have also made the decision to postpone a few of own events, including the induction of our new Leadership Network members, to ensure we can give them good experiences. You can read about these new members in this month's newsletter, and we’ll look forward to bringing them together later in the year.
Young visitors testing their knowledge of China in the Asia New Zealand Foundation area at the New Zealand Olympic Committee's NZHQ in Wānaka.
One event that has been able to proceed is the New Zealand Olympic Committee’s fanzone in Wānaka for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, where supporters have been cheering on the successes of New Zealand Olympians. The Asia New Zealand Foundation has sponsored educational activities at the fanzone, as we did during the Tokyo Olympics at the Auckland fanzone last year. About 700 students from around the region are visiting the fanzone over the course of the Winter Olympics, participating in a fun quiz to test their knowledge of China.
I’m hoping 2022 brings some opportunity to reconnect with Asia in person. The Government’s announcement last week about timeframes for the reopening of borders makes us more optimistic about the prospect of some offshore travel later in 2022, and the possibility of welcoming some guests from the region. While online connections have helped bridge some gaps these past two years, we know face-to-face connections and on-the-ground experiences are vital for New Zealand’s longer-term engagement with Asia.
In the interim, we're full steam ahead with some major projects, the most significant of these being something called “Seriously Asia Revisited”. In 2003, the Asia New Zealand Foundation — then Asia 2000 — ran a year-long initiative called Seriously Asia. It included a series of exchanges and gatherings that culminated in a conference at Parliament with Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of the day. The outcomes included substantial recommendations for developing New Zealand's relationship with Asia in key areas. It resulted in the establishment of the Seriously Asia fund at MFAT and an agreement to begin trade talks with China, among other areas.
This year the Foundation will be refreshing the findings of 2003, working with a range of informed voices from around the country. Nearly two decades later, what did New Zealand get right? With the benefit of hindsight, what might we do differently? And how have things changed?
We look forward to telling you more about the initiative as we progress over the course of 2022.
We're also proud to be investing in upskilling our staff this year with intensive Te Reo courses, delivered by Victoria University of Wellington. Our first group of eight staff have been studying over the summer, with our second group scheduled to spend five weeks studying in winter. Upskilling our team in tikanga and Te Reo has been an increasing focus of our work. I’m looking forward to participating in the course myself later in 2022.
Finally, I’d invite you to check out our Year in Review on our website. It highlights some inspiring projects around the country that we were able to support or run in 2020-21 to grow New Zealanders’ knowledge and understanding of Asia. Thanks to our partners and many individuals around Aotearoa and beyond for their contributions; we look forward to working with you in 2022.
Noho ora mai
Simon Draper
In case you missed them, here are Simon Draper's most recent Stuff columns.
