By Alina Suchanski Reading time: 14 minutes Dubbed “the common cold of mental illness”, depression has reached epidemic proportions amongst European nations and English speaking countries. At the other end of the spectrum, there are languages that don’t even have a word for ‘depression’. Alina Suchanski explores...
By Alina Suchanski Reading time: 12 minutes Allotment gardening has been deeply rooted in Europe’s urban culture for over 200 years. The idea first germinated during the era of industrialisation, a time of mass migration of farmworkers from villages to cities. Allotment gardens not only provided a...
By Hayley White Reading time: 12 minutes One of the things I am hearing more and more kōrero about is generational trauma, especially when talking about Māori experiences in the many years after colonisation. Generational trauma is sometimes called intergenerational or transgenerational trauma, a concept that was...
By Jennifer Little Reading time: 12 minutes The poetry and rhythms of American rap and hip-hop were Samoan actor Shadon Meredith’s intro to the power and magic of language. He loved English as a subject at St Patrick’s College in Wellington, but it was the sound reverberating...
By Chris Pidgeon Reading time: 14 minutes It’s been over a year now since I removed myself from social media. I kept LinkedIn for professional networking, and Messenger to stay in touch with friends. I said goodbye to endlessly scrolling through Instagram, posting on Facebook about who...
By Jennifer Little Reading time: 12 minutes Leaving home - it’s a milestone we all face at some point. But leaving your homeland to start a new life in another country presents a raft of complexities and challenges on another scale altogether - never mind trying to...
By Hayley White Reading time: 10 minutes Vira Paky has lived in New Zealand since 2003 and arrived with her parents as asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She tells me about how her parents briefly lived in Africa, post-apartheid, where there was a lot...
By Hayley White Reading time: 8 minutes Jake Alabaster came to New Zealand a year ago looking for new scenery. Originally from the Gold Coast in Australia, he enrolled at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Arts (NASDA) in Christchurch as an international student to study...