Document 7:

Use immigrant leadership

We need to appeal to and draw from the vast amounts of modern day skill, expertise and leadership that now exists in the immigrant communities Rob Pickstock, Managing Director of Kiwi Ora said to participants in the cultural diversity and citizenship education networking function.
“We need to start thinking about immigration, cultural diversity and citizenship differently – and in a way which recognises the significant changes in what makes up the majority of modern day immigrants.”
“Most importantly”, he said of the students who attend or attended Kiwi Ora “they can make good decisions on their own”. After all, they have already made the decision to come to NZ.
In his address to the networking function in Wellington on 22 August 2005 he said the link between cultural diversity and immigration is an obvious one. “Perhaps what is not quite so obvious is how the profile of an immigrant has changed in recent years.”
Over the last 2.5 years Kiwi Ora has had daily contact with around 25,000 immigrants to New Zealand from 108 ethnicities and who speak over 97 languages.
“It has been our experience that to most New Zealanders an immigrant is a displaced person – almost someone in the homeless and desperate category – and devoid of the ability to make sound decisions. While this is true for a small percentage of immigrants it is not the case for well over 60% of us” he said.
Rob Pickstock migrated from South Africa to New Zealand.
The profile of modern day immigrants Kiwi Ora serve is:
o 39 years old on average
o 100% have a high school qualification
o 96% have tertiary qualification of some kind
o 74% have a university degree
o They do not have police records
o They have excellent work experience
o They are in stable relationships
o They are in good health.
“I believe that we need to stop applying old fashioned thinking to immigration, immigrants and hence cultural diversity and citizenship” Rob Pickstock said.
Find out more
Rob Pickstock
Ora Limited
DDi - (09) 966 2001
Fax - (09) 916 1411
Mob - 021 627 045
Web - www.kiwi-ora.com