Monthly Archives: Apr 2017

This morning I took a look at the Butterfly – Monarch butterfly sun basking onto the bottlebrush tree in our garden.This butterfly reminded me when I am working with many people/children with disabilities who have struggled or finding hope for their needs. But not just people/children with disabilities, individuals who suffered depression, homeless or mental illness in Waikato.Living in a cocoon for a long time until you find a way to escape and fly away into the sky.Freedom or not? Are you afraid to ask for help or don’t know where to find someone in Waikato?There are approximately 42,000 people with children who are homeless around New Zealand.In 2014 in the city of Hamiton, there were about 80 individuals who were sleeping rough in the central city and one non-profit organisation – The Peoples’ Project placed 78 out of 80 people off the street into homes. The last report in 2016, there were 800 individuals and families into reasonable homes by the People’s Project group.Let say there are 925 disabled people, who are in labour force for adults from 15 years to 65+ in New ZealandTotal employed (disabled people) in New Zealand is 416. These figures came from 2013 Disability Survey: Social and economic outcomes tables. The number of people with disabilities including children is 1,062,000 in 2013. The sensory impairment estimated 484,000 people were limited in their everyday activities such as wearing hearing aids. (Note: Census in 2013)We have a group called Coalition of Deaf Mental Health Professionals. There is about 10% of Deaf people uses the services such as mental health or addiction service but leaving 1% of Deaf people with their first language – New Zealand Sign Language around New Zealand. Many of the services do not know about D/deaf people and their sign language due to lack of information and resources in New Zealand.I have a small number of disabled people visited me from the past to present at work. I listened (lipreading) them and gave the advice to go to the right place where there is an excellent, reasonable service that will help them. My strong advice to book an interpreter and have a support person. I did a lot of referrals for these individuals.I noticed many homeless people do not want to be involved with any organisation because of their troubles and reject by the organisation. I find another way of rejoining them to a different society, and it often works out well.At the end of my work, I received a lot of feedbacks from them and it was nice to know or hear that these people who I helped, are doing well and teaching the same way I taught them. I am a privilege to learn their stories from them. BUT there is still more works with D/deaf people and other people with disabilities to be done around the societies in New Zealand.http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/health/disabilities/DisabilitySurvey_HOTP2013/Commentary.aspxhttp://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/health/disabilities/disability-housing-2013.aspxhttps://cdmhp.org.nz/about-us/summary/https://www.thepeoplesproject.org.nz/homelessnesshttp://nzccss.org.nz/work/poverty/the-real-housing-affordability-issues/homelessness-the-invisible-housing-problem/http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/3950

Source: Thinking about the Butterfly

A lovely birthday cake for me as my birthday is coming up…. April 9th.Many people celebrate birthdays in many different ways of lives. This birthday cake made by one of the staff who runs the cookery programme for low-income people, people with learning disabilities and to serve homeless/women and men’s shelter home in Hamilton. It was a Friday mid-day 7th April where I was working at the office – Hamilton Methodist City Action/Hamilton Social Services. My work role is a deaf community support worker for people with disabilities and Deaf people including Hearing Impaired and Deafblind.

Source: A pleasure surprise from work!

– A sore throat at the start of the end of Term One – School holiday in New Zealand.- A second Cyclone is arriving today, and it called Cyclone Cook. The previous Cyclone Debbie came here from Australia last week.- One NZSL class at the library cancelled by myself to the staff because of the people with learning disabilities and their safety by coming to the Central Library at the Hamilton City. It is safer than sorry. – The second job for assisting and supporting an ESOL Deaf lady at the Settlement Resources Centre, I told this Deaf lady to stay at home for her safety and to avoid my throat virus. Tomorrow it is the start of a long weekend – Easter weekend, and I don’t celebrate chocolate Easter eggs. I am a Christian person and believe in faith since my father’s death when I was six years old. I can be a sceptic on anything that falls my path. What I enjoy is to eat hot cross buns, time together with my hearing partner and dogs and to have a long relaxing weekend! So far, with the warning of the Cyclone Cook on the media for many d/Deaf people and Hearing Impaired people by having to broadcast on tv, facebook, twitters and to provide an interpreter during the breaking news. It appeared to be working, BUT I don’t know until after the storm pass. In the past, Media companies and the Government failed to provide interpreters on the news, Facebook, Civil Defence websites. We, the group called Deaf Action wrote out a petition along with many signatures to the Government and media companies. They declined and the lack of awareness for all people with disabilities in the urban and in the rural like me. Sigh, it is a long way to go.

Source: What a crap way to start with?

In New Zealand, we are having experience with the wild wet weather – Can not blame Aussie! Due to Cyclone DebbieIn Waikato, we received the huge amount of deluge rain fall everywhere for the last three-two days. In Waikato, it was the worstweather we ever received since 2008 and 2011. The photo above was takenoutside Hamilton City on my way to work this morning. The section was a part of the Waikato Express Motorway construction, and it called Ruakura Interchange.http://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/projects/hamilton/hamilton-project-update-201702.pdfI slept through nights without hearing aids until I woke up to find puddles everywhere outside the fields from our windows. My partner and dogs did not manage to sleep through nights due to heavy noises on the roof. Sigh! I was the lucky person to sleep through all night because of my deafness and leaving my partner and dogs in despair with noisy. If I wear my hearing aids anytime and I can hear the vibration of the sounds and noise of noises through the roof. Without hearing aids, Deaf people can not listen to the sounds except to feel vibrations by feeling through their feet, body or hands. Today the sun finally came out and hopefully to dry out all the water everywhere especially for the farmers’ crops such as maizes. Recently there is a small town called Edgecumbe, and it is on the East Coast of the North Island. This town suffered severely, and it was under water due to a flood bank breached. Many local people who live in Edgecumbe survived the earthquake in 1987. The township population is 1,638 in 2013 according to the census in New Zealand but on the news, it said there were about 2,000 people living in Edgecumbe. Several roads were cut off in the rural areas eg Port Waikato including the highway road between Nelson, Kaikoura and Christchurch. Of course, we are not the only one to suffered the worst weather. In Colombia, an avalanche of mud and derbies washed down the village called Salgar. This mud slides killed around 50 people in Salgar and around the village.mm, I wonder what kind of winter in Waikato, we will be having.

Source: Oh what! Deluge everywhere

​Something was really unusually in Morrinsville, Waikato yesterday……We arrived to the Countdown Supermarket – grocery supermarket like the Walmart, Marks & Spencer, in Morrinsville. I noticed something was really funny and to brighten the day up as it was cloudy morning..In the car park across the road from Countdown Supermarkert car park, there was a large tractor parking in the Warehouse car park… Yep! A large tractor parked in the car park..First I saw a mobility scooter parked in the disability car park a couple years ago and I took a photo. Now it was a tractor!Of course, Morrinsville is a farming urban. “A farmer coming to town, a farmer coming to town, a farmer coming to town and finding somewhere to park in the town..”

Source: Something to brighten the day!

This month is April and where has the summer gone by…In Eureka, Waikato, we were experienced having a short summer season in the rural country of Waikato. The maize crops were not harvested due to a very long wet Spring season last year. It had been a lot of rainfalls over two and a half months during the Spring season until around December, and the summer finally came through. Many farmers planted maizes around November than September due to wet soil. BUT we did not have plenty of sunny days for another two and a half months until now. There were a lot of humid evenings when we tried to have a good sleep each night.The worst of all was a booming population of rabbits everywhere in the rural country. We receive daily visits of rabbits and their bunnies creeping into our fields and doing sunbathing each day when there was the sunshine. We were not bothered with this pest – rabbits. Most of the times, I enjoyed looking out from the kitchen window and watching this rabbits eating grasses. It reminded me of my childhood when my late grandfather took me out to do rabbits, duck and other pests shooting during the school holiday.Up the road from us, there has been the sound of ‘gun shootings’ in the farmland, and we know that the neighbours were doing rabbit shootings. Other neighbours use baits in the burrows out in the farm land where there were no cows or another kind of animals like dogs and cats. We do not use any baits or obtain a gun here because we have got dogs. Our dogs chase rabbits as it is their exercise each day. One of our ‘English’ neighbours told me off to not use our dogs to chase rabbits when they were walking with their ‘lonely’ dog. Heh – I told this neighbour that it was not their property and it was not their problem and do not bother to call the Pest Control Officer because they (Council staff) know who you are such a nuisance caller.We missed having a long hot summer this year. We have a good crop of tomatoes, and I made into tomatoes sauces. The roses were blooming over a long period of times throughout summer into autumn. I continue to prune dead head many roses until they are about to finish before or after the frost season.Sigh! Let hope we will have a good season of autumn and watching leaves falling down in our fields. A cool month to come, less rain fall and a plenty of sunshines.

Source: What! It is Autumn here in New Zealand.

Source: How rude or to gain a shock reaction from the person???