News from the Valley

YOUR NEW BESTIE, REBECCA! Community advocate and waste minimalist, Rebecca Harris, is set to bring you a number of helpful videos around waste reduction and budget cooking, much like her freezer tips recording featured last month. Keep a look out for Rebecca on our Facebook and on our YouTube channel as well as on the blog here this month. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience to impart in the name of food resiliency! Find her first video on Zero Waste in the kitchen and fridge below! Zero waste in the kitchen and fridge A waste reduction video …

Preserving - reducing waste Rebecca is back with another video on reducing waste - this time she'll be talking about how to tie this into another thing we've been talking about a lot - preserving! It's harvest season so here are some reduced waste ideas for preserves. People think of preserves as jams and chutneys but you can preserve things by drying, freezing and lots of other ways. For example, hanging herbs to dry and then turning them into tea. A great way to find the raw ingredients for preserving without spending money is to join your local community …

KRYSHA BRZUZA, NEW VALLEY PROJECT EDITOR & COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR Howdy! Krysha (KRIH-SHAH) here. I'm the one responsible for the recent changes you may have noticed in the Valley Voice formatting and the newsletter's advertising programme. Having a Media Arts background, I simply couldn't help myself! From the first day I clocked in at the Valley Project it was evident my experience with the organisation was going to be a life-changer. It was also immediately noted that my role as editor and communications coordinator was heavily dependent on networking. Indeed, establishing connections within this community is a primary goal. How …

STAFF DEPARTURE - CHARLOTTE WILSON After arriving back in Dunedin in 2010 following work as a primary school teacher in Vietnam for a number of years, I was employed part-time at North East Valley Normal School as the ESOL teacher and ran the Valley Club, an afterschool programme for children considered to be “at risk”. Here they received some kai and homework support, as well as opportunities to participate in a range of activities and to develop positive relationships with adults. I attended North East Valley and then DNI as a kid and my mum grew up in Opoho …

During this hands-on workshop, you will discover the joy of creating quilts. The idea of the project is a reference to gender equality and the feminist movement as a form of resistance against gender discrimination in society. The Quilt Project will integrate math and art to create your own block to share your views on gender inequality. The Quilt Project is aiming to create the large-scale block quilt with panels created with an applique of math basic symbols such as (not equal sign, inequality sign, and power sign etc.) Each panel will illustrate the inequitable status of women in …

Chew cards are one of the detection tools in our predator monitoring toolkit that help us to identify the presence of mammalian predators that might harm our native wildlife. Chew cards are made of plastic ‘corflute’ with many small channels that are filled with a peanut butter based (non-toxic) lure and can provide clues to help us to detect which mammalian predators are visiting our backyard. We can select the right trap to target specific species and. The great thing about chew cards is that they are easy to use and place in your backyard - using just a …

A NEW addition to the Valley Project team, a New Zealand Falcon, or kārearea in Te Reo Māori, can be found enhancing the entrance to the car park on North Road. This beautiful mural, painted by Bruce Mahalski from the Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery signifies all of the amazing biodiversity found within the North East Valley and surrounding suburbs. His image is inspired by a photograph by Keith Payne. But, why the kārearea, and why is it so special? We have heard many stories from local community members remarking on the wonderful and fierce nature of the …

Recognised through-out the world as the toughest, highest, longest 24-hr race since Pheidippides did not exist, since Adam wasn’t a boy, and since bread was sliced. The 24-hour fundraising race sees participants running, or walking, as many times as they can to the summit of Mount Cargill and back down again. The races’ inception came about by a group of running buddies contemplating crazy challenges for themselves over beers. The annual Crush the Cargill event is all set to commence at 10am on the 12th of December. Crush the Cargill and The Valley Project are about getting people together …

Weed Bash Success! The Weed Bash was full of celebration last month when various Weed Warrior crews and Community Gardeners removed about 15 woolsacks of weeds from community spaces and backyards! The target weed for the Weed Bash - Banana Passionfruit Vine (Passiflora tripartita) was the top of the list for removal - a highly invasive weed, with many plants removed from backyards. Banana Passionfruit Vine is a climber, climbing onto trees, eventually smothering them. Keep on look out for a plant with three lobed leaves, pink, tubular hanging flowers when flowering and banana-shaped fruit that ripen from …

The term “weed” is a little bit of a misnomer - the term weed could apply to any plant, if it’s not quite where we want it to be. Some species however, are known as invasive weeds - these are plants that are introduced into a new area and spread very quickly, altering the new environment. Often, these plant species take over areas, creating a monoculture and have little benefits for native wildlife. Plants considered weeds may also attract undesirable species (i.e. sycamores attract wasps and likely rats too), do not produce foods native species eat and/or are not …

Marieke Rutgers joined the Valley Project team in the depths of Winter 2019. Having familiarised herself with the different ways kiwis have for coping with the climate (hot water bottles and layering over central heating) she quickly became a dedicated community member and worked extremely hard on a variety of projects, most notably event planning for Creek fest. As Marieke has now completed her internship, it’s time to head home to the Netherlands to complete her degree in international business. “I cannot think of a better community and city to be a part of. All the love and struggles …

Mornington resident Nick Rutledge and his 5-year-old daughter Inara have been putting together small food boxes with all the ingredients needed for one complete meal and leaving them in the South Dunedin community food pantry. Now the pair have started to drop what they term ‘kai-ndness’ boxes into the new North East Valley community sharing pantry. A vegan himself, Nick goes shopping with his daughter to put together the ingredients needed to create a complete vegetarian meal for either breakfast, lunch or dinner along with a recipe if needed. “There is such a need in the community,” says Nick …