supplied/Nelson Mail
The out of reach dream of homeownership has become possible for some families in the Nelson. NMIT apprentices will build two affordable houses for Ngāti Koata whānau. Pictured are Ngāti Koata trust’s Justin Carter with NMIT’s Reid Carnegie, and Marja Kneepkens.
Homeownership may be at its lowest for nearly 70 years, but the dream is set to become a reality for whānau in the Nelson region. Two houses are due to be built, and sold for a “significantly reduced rate” next year, to whānau registered to Ngāti Koata, as part of a project between the iwi and Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT).
He congratulated students on their commitment and hard work. “You can celebrate the fact you are now graduating from one of New Zealand’s leading tertiary vocational institutes.”
Braden Fastier/Stuff
Students wait in line to receive their qualifications during the 2020 NMIT graduation ceremony at Trafalgar Centre, Nelson. Chief executive Wayne Jackson, who took over from Sloan last month, said the graduates would be feeling pride but maybe “slight trepidation” as the country worked through the post Covid recovery. Students had achieved the skills needed to be successful in a fast-changing world, he said. The most popular programmes reflected the support of TTAF (free trades training) funding and a growing cultural awareness in the community with enrolments being led by learners of te reo.
Kendall Lovett passed away on October 21. He was 98.
Ken was a founding member of the Gay Solidarity Group/Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, Residents of Woolloomooloo Action Group, Sydney Park AIDS (SPAIDS) memorial grove project, Gay Liberation, Gaywaves Radio Program, Gay Radio Information New Service, Gay Community News and many other projects and groups.
Ken was in the thick of many political and cultural projects and struggles. He lent his fine pen and sign-writing skills to help create innumerable posters, flyers, protest pinafores and banners an example of which can be found in the photo illustrating this obituary.
Ken was one of the loveliest people I’ve had the fortune to know: he was a true gentle man.
But when Pomeroy turned up on campus with an armload of recycled materials she had collected, the person in charge took one look at her and said, No, this is not happening. Our course is about building a house, not rummaging through second hand materials.”
Braden Fastier/Stuff
With two mezzanine floors, Pomeroy finds there’s plenty of room for her and her partner. “The guy said to me: ‘Why don’t you build it yourself?’” Pomeroy says, adding that the momentum had already started gathering. So she took on the challenge. It took her two years to build her own home, and another year to finish it properly. She says it was “very, very” hard.
“What has been most impressive is the quality of work that has been produced and the ambition within this work, having not been compromised at all by the restrictions of lockdown – our students found other ways of working and new directions as a result.” After a frantic few days to set-up their work in the G Block Gallery, tutors, students, family and friends came together on Friday to celebrate the exhibiiton opening and learn who had won the Jens Hansen Excellence Award for 2020s best final year student. That prize went to artist Cristina Rule for
Threads of Ancestry, a screen printing and felting work which was motivated by the discovery of her Mesoamerican ancestral heritage through a genetic ethnicity test.