■ Lyn Riesterer makes a passionate case for why advocacy in all its forms – whether quiet, persistence or public protest – is vital to securing fair treatment and better outcomes for Ōpōtiki and beyond.

I have been overwhelmed by the need for good advocacy skills and habits within several organisations that I belong to or committees that I serve on just recently.

Over the past year and a half, much of my work has centred around advocacy for our community.

For instance, as chair of the Ōpōtiki Community Health Trust, myself and all of our trustees, have been spending hours writing emails and having conversations with the groups of people in Te Whatu Ora who are making policy and budget decisions on the health services (or the lessening of, or just pure lack of) available to our people living in Ōpōtiki.

Every new cut to our services means the need for another flurry of concerned conversations on behalf of our community.

Why? It’s so important for those people making decisions to have an understanding of why Ōpōtiki doesn’t fit the mould they want to put us in ... making sure they understand the problems with patients having to travel so far, so often, for treatment or even just assessment.

Advocacy is a way of telling our stories from our community in order to have people in Te Whatu Ora at least have a second look at and another discussion around the table before, yet again, lumping us in with the rest of the Eastern Bay when it comes to them “creating their solutions” to service problems that they have created in the first place.

As president of Ōpōtiki Grey Power, that advocacy role is there as well, but probably more in the background. Being a member of an organisation that advocates to the minister for seniors, the minister of health and any other minister who is making decisions concerning the “senior citizens” of New Zealand, does make me feel that another advocacy voice is being heard on behalf of our community.

I believe our local council, as a matter of standard practice, should be engaging with our Grey Power membership when dealing with its annual plan and long-term plan consultancy times with Ōpōtiki citizens.

I’m making a bit of a bold statement by saying that advocacy through written submissions, letters etc is a very “Pakeha” way of going about things, but look at the success New Zealand has had through the 300,000-plus submissions (mostly against) David Seymour’s notorious waste of time bill.

The ire of the people was heard through our different forms of advocacy.

Māori advocated through action, ngā hīkoi, throughout the land, with many tauiwi (non-Māori) joining in.

I doubt Mr Seymour would ever have thought that his bill would create such a positive, unifying result for many New Zealanders who opposed so strongly his party’s actions.  

And all of this was achieved through advocacy – speaking out for what we believe in, for all of our communities.

Other words for advocacy are support, encouragement, backing, sponsorship, promotion or activism.

The last form of advocacy I want to mention takes me back to our Ōpōtiki Community Health Trust.

Through its backing and sponsorship of eight of our locals, who are undertaking health-related education at tertiary level, OCHT have helped their journey through a total of $38,200 in scholarships this year.

We always wish it could be more, but we continue to advocate as best we can in as many ways as we can.

Taking all of those words for advocacy into account, I have always found that Ōpōtiki is a community which “advocates” for many groups within our district constantly.

However, we need to remind ourselves, from time to time, that this is such a necessary part of citizenship for the continuing good health of our society.

May we all take the art of advocacy to a higher level, but always only for the betterment of our community.