The Chatham Islands' scout hall is almost unrecognisable. The once run-down facility has been well and truly spruced up thanks to assistance from Community Work teams.
"The hall was in really bad shape so I suggested it would be an ideal job for our offenders to tackle," says Chatham Islands
Senior Community Work Supervisor Richard Seymour.
"It was an ambitious project but offenders working alongside local volunteers have dismantled the hall, loaded it onto trucks, moved it to a better site and started rebuilding.
"The Chathams' population rarely reaches more than 600 people so community projects can be very hard to get off the ground.
"This project has demonstrated how important it is for the community to pull together and how their actions can have an impact. It's good for offenders on Community Work to be part of that."
Richard says while the hall is far from finished, it's progressing well with plans to have covered decking on three sides of the hall completed for the winter sports season.
The interior fit-out and painting will begin after that.
There are no firm plans for the opening ceremony but Richard both expects and wants the Community Work offenders to be there.
"The quality of their work has been superb and although they may not have chosen to work on this project if not for their sentence, they've put a huge amount of effort in," he says.
"I believe working on a project like this and becoming so involved in the community could be a turning point for many of them."
In the meantime, offenders serving Community Work sentences are providing a weekly ground maintenance programme for the Motor Moana scout camp in New Lynn, Auckland - a programme the camp would otherwise struggle to complete.
Senior Community Work Supervisor Stephen D'Souza says the weeding, bush trimming, drain clearing and firewood collecting activities undertaken by offenders are hugely important to both the scouts and Motor Moana as a whole.
"It's a non-profit organisation that shares its hall with the wider community and a number of groups that hire the facilities for conferences and meetings," says Stephen.
"They operate a tight budget which would be seriously compromised without the longterm assistance that Corrections has given them - an association I hope will continue for a long time yet."
The Motor Moana project uses the services of groups of eight to nine offenders at any one time. Over and above the general maintenance programme they provide, offenders recently built a wooden fence to create privacy for the camp.
Got a good story for Community Works or want to request the print edition
Email commdesk@corrections.govt.nz or phone (04) 460 3365
Got a story for Community Works or want to request the print edition?
Email commdesk@corrections.govt.nz or phone (04) 460 3365.
Community Works is published quarterly by the Department of Corrections. Contact details for Community Probation & Psychological Services can be found here or by looking under C for Corrections in the Government listings of the Telecom White Pages.
ISSN 1178-1327