Shows
Christchurch InvitationEp. 19: Tyla Harrison-Hunt – “The leader eats last: Intersectionality, servant leadership, and faith”Intersectionality means pulling together, working from the different strands of who we are. And for Tyla Harrison-Hunt working like this is a strength, not a burden. He offers the example of high performing teams where amazing collective leadership is a powerful element in their success. In the best collective leaderships each one knows their role and does it well.The lessons seem clear: bring in everyone, take in their perspectives and every strength in those ideas in order to come to a desired outcome. Yet our political systems operate with short cycles, often just...2025-07-3156 minChristchurch InvitationEp 18: Farid Ahmed – “On becoming who I am”In the March 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack, Farid Ahmed’s wife, Husna, was killed. He and his daughter then spoke together about the path they should take. It would be one, not of anger and retribution, but of forgiveness. He said, “ I do not want to have a heart like a volcano.” That forgiveness at such a brutal, calculated act has prompted a range of responses: wide-spread respect felt globally but also, and, from others, a difficulty in understanding, and even a kind of discomfort.In this conversation we talk about his upbringing in Sylhet, north...2025-07-0157 minChristchurch InvitationEp 17: John Psathas – “Music for connection and compassion, and the quality of the human relationships that we build”When the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) were exploring how they, as the nation’s orchestra, could respond to the events of the 2019 Christchurch terror attacks and bring people together, they turned to the composer John Psathas. In 2024 that NZSO initiative resulted in three performances of their “Beyond Words” concert. The premiere would be in the Christchurch Town Hall five years on from those attacks – in a sense offering welcome to the migrant experience and seeking to draw something good and whole from that tragedy.He was ready to be involved but only if they could get...2025-06-1855 minChristchurch InvitationEp 16: Raesha Ismail – "Rich lessons in life from the corner dairy”The corner dairy is a familiar part of our landscape. The lives lived inside unknown to those just passing. Raesha Ismail was nine years old when her family bought the dairy on Springs Road, Christchurch. For a child it was a space full of treats that offered a joyful time. There, her parents modelled the meaning of very hard work and responsibility that saw Raesha and two of her brothers through university. Seven days a week and just two half-days off each year, with family life integrated into the shop, in a place that was part of the social...2025-06-0456 minChristchurch InvitationEp 15: John Sellwood – “About stories, how they’re told, and the need to step back from judgement”Over almost forty-five years of working in journalism – first in radio, then television – John Sellwood’s experiences taught him many lessons. From one, very early, “live cross” in Wellington the need to listen, double-check, then triple-check were all brought home to him. If things can go wrong, they will. There is that possibility in story-telling that empathy may be a negative, almost a selfish act. He recalls putting himself in a place where he should not have been. As a journalist ‘you are not the story . . . stories were gifted to me; they were never mine.’2025-05-2156 minChristchurch InvitationEp 14: Colin Mansbridge – “Crusaders rugby and their place in the community”To belong somewhere it seems helpful to have a kind of a map – of its people, their names, and the organisations that are prominent parts of that landscape. In Canterbury, Crusaders rugby is one such prominent name. Known for their many successes, for the coaches and the culture they’ve built, and the players who’ve come to be part of that story.Here, their CEO, Colin Mansbridge, talks about his joining the Crusaders from a rural banking background, but also of the team’s connection with the city, especially after the 2010/2011 earthquakes when all of the...2025-05-0755 minChristchurch InvitationEp 13: Hassan Hassan – Sharing the Blessing of Education and Giving BackArriving in New Zealand at the age of 15 knowing virtually no English meant that Hassan Hassan could only watch soccer and not join in. When the chance came for him to play, the words from his coach to “push up on the wing” were little more than sounds. More importantly, that lack of English blocked the way to the education that hadn’t been possible in Somalia, where his family had moved and moved again to find a safer place. But two years of intense application at Hagley College, here in Christchurch, and a determi...2025-04-2453 minChristchurch InvitationEp 12: Maka Mohi – Finding Your Way Back HomePukehina in the Bay of Plenty is tiny. Growing up there, Maka Mohi knew where to fish and where to hunt. But the narratives he heard were that elsewhere was amazing; the Māori world wasn’t amazing. A misstep in high school meant leaving so, at 17, "thinking I was 24," he left for big city Brisbane – and temptations: drink, drugs, and a downward spiral. Back in NZ and on the run. Then prison. Here there was food, a bed and blanket, and a roof over your head. But it was prison and the realisation, "I chose this!" And when his m...2025-03-2557 minChristchurch InvitationEp 11: Temel Ataçocuğu – The journey with pain, and walking for peaceAt a time when the NZ government is discussing firearms legislation we consider the great harm from weapons in the wrong hands. Temel Ataçocuğu suffered major bullet injuries in the Christchurch mosque attacks. Almost six years on, he speaks about the drastic changes in his life, and on how his traumas can be triggered.He talks, too, about his Walk for Peace and about how he decided to make this walk, retracing the 360kms journey of the 2019 killer from Dunedin to Christchurch. Along the way he raised money for three children's charities and fo...2025-03-1156 minChristchurch InvitationEp 10: Tony Green & Sara Qasem: Turning the tablesIn a previous conversation, Bariz Shah suggested the tables should be turned and the host (that’s me) should be questioned. I dwelt on that for a while, then asked Sara Qasem to be the questioner (There seemed a kind of balance: Sara was one of the speakers at the 2021 launch of The Christchurch Invitation / Mahia te Aroha and was my first podcast guest). But I thank Bariz for suggesting the idea.So this is loosely framed around asking how I came to have the perspectives that I have. And why respond to the March 15, 2019 Christchurch attacks wi...2025-02-2556 minChristchurch InvitationEp 9: Zahra Emamzadeh – talking of Iran, and homeWe're told that nearly 28% of New Zealand's population were born elsewhere. We come as outsiders, and learn to live in this quieter place where the streets, by comparison, can seem almost empty. Assumptions are often made: "Oh, you're from ______. That means . . . " It seems valuable to ask what we 'new' New Zealanders, we 'others' (I'm one) bring with us. What were we taught in those faraway places? What might we miss of that place we called 'home'?
Today Zahra Emamzadeh talks of Iran, of Tehran with 10 million people, and the family (and food) that were, and are, precious to...2025-01-2956 minChristchurch InvitationEp. 8 Bariz Shah – on rich learnings; on where we best place our trust; and on where we find peaceIf we cannot dictate what happens to us, our power is in how we choose to respond. From being “played out” by someone he thought of as a friend, Bariz Shah learned to have higher loyalties. Prison offered a disconnect from what was hurting him but systems do not easily forgive or forget. So you look beyond for stronger, enduring points of reference.
In Afghanistan after March 2019 with his wife Saba, he experienced people who had real self-acceptance and no victim mindset – "they knew who they were and they liked themselves." In creating 51 micro-businesses to honour those killed...2025-01-1456 minChristchurch InvitationEp. 7: Mel Logan & Hakan Ilhan – mother and son: on strong personalities and on working through differencesWe enter a challenging world depending on our mothers. Then journey to realise ourselves as individuals. The young person making their own choices, even if they're "dumb" or seem dumb to others. The mother, here a single parent, concerned to protect, yet fearing losing her boys. In this conversation, Mel and her son Hakan share some of the challenges they have worked through. Her counsellor's words: "Be kind. Be there. But wait." And Hakan's recognising "the most important relationship you'll ever have in your life."2025-01-0156 minChristchurch InvitationEp 6 Shirley Wright – on a life with people as the focus and how her work is a privilegeIn Shirley Wright’s childhood her father’s habit of inviting people home meant interesting conversations around the dinner table. Even in a family with seven children there was always enough food for one more: you “put another spud in the pot.”
She talks here about the inherited memories she grew up with; of a great grand-mother and an unjust pauper’s grave; of her mother's teachings and of how much her work with refugees and migrants has given her.2024-12-1755 minChristchurch InvitationEp 5: Jeremy Faumuinā – On honouring the spaces between usWith the NZ Police Jeremy Faumuinā says, "I get paid to care" for youth and community. Working with people who "haven't had encouragement" he explores what success looks like for them. And that key concern: what world will our young people inherit? His conviction is with the power of conversation (talanoa), of alofa (love and compassion), and with the Pasifika concept of the Vā – on common ground and the "betweenness" of spaces. His platform, "Vā Concepts," draws on his own Samoan heritage.2024-12-0356 minChristchurch InvitationRosemary Omar – on ancestry (whakapapa), restorative justice, and keeping personal that which was private and preciousSavage attacks are deeply unsettling. Individuals, and their families are tested. Media may be hungry for stories. Our whakapapa – our, sometimes complex, lines of identity – may not be recognised. And then your child’s teacher might say, simply, “Just be here! Sit here in your own space!”
Systems take over and your opportunities to work for the common good may be stifled. This conversation talks to the experience of Rosemary Omar and the loss of her son, Tariq, in the 2019 mosque attacks. 2024-11-1954 minChristchurch InvitationChris Starr – on schools, places of incarceration, counselling, and the creation of safe spacesOn
his work in counselling: the privilege of working with young people and alongside
men who are in prison; on helping people realise who they have in their corner;
on the possibility of jiujitsu for building trust and overcoming anger; and
more . . .2024-11-0655 minChristchurch InvitationEngineer Bill White on finding joy in work and sharing research for the common goodBill White on his journey as an engineer; of how work done cheerfully is work done differently. Of being comfortable with mistakes and and accepting what others might see as physical limitations; of how sharing his researches on hydrogen power – the fuel of the future – has to beyond commercialism and capitalism because of the importance to our existence.2024-10-2253 minChristchurch InvitationSara Qasem – speaking past labelsThe past does not define us but it shapes and lives on. Sara Qasem is a poet, a high school teacher; someone who responds strongly to the flavours of her Palestinian heritage and her life here in New Zealand.Her father, Abdelfattah Qasem, was killed in the March 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks. His continuing presence in her life comes through in the poems he shared with her and the values she speaks to.2024-10-0851 min