The Indian Weekender, 04 June 2021

2 NEW ZEALAND
Friday, June 4, 2021
The Indian Weekender
Community supporters turn up in
hundreds at Shakti musical fundraiser
IWK BUREAU
More than 400 people gathered to
attend ‘Ragas Of Devi Presents:
Shakti’, a musical fundraiser
in aid of Shakti Community Council Inc.
held on Saturday, May 29 at Mt Eden War
Memorial Hall.
The event organized by survivor and
musician Devi Sobhana, alongside professional
and self-trained musicians showcased how
ragas or classical tunes could bring together not
only different musical genres but also diverse
communities to promote the cause of ending
family violence.
Event organizer Sobhana worked with a large
team of community volunteers to host the event
and had several multi-ethnic performers and
trained classical Indian dancers.
She said that her aim was to express her
appreciation for Shakti who supported her as a
survivor of family violence, and to encourage
others to ask for help.
“It is beyond words how appreciative I felt
for Shakti. The event definitely exceeded my
expectations,” Sobhana said.
“I just wanted to say thank you to Shakti
and be loud and proud about it. I didn’t expect
to have such a large turnout. I expected 200
people maybe through pre-event ticket sales,
but on the day of the event we suddenly saw
twice the number of people filling up the hall.”
The former client of Shakti shared that she
will never forget the support she received while
going through her own journey leaving an
abusive relationship.
“I felt that the work Shakti does is about
dealing with people’s emotions, not just
processes. It is a highly stressful job am sure
for Shakti staff, but they get results, and they
are focused on helping clients. I became more
confident after I moved on. Shakti has changed
my life and this is how I wish to pay my respect
for Shakti. This is what the organization has
done to help me, and I am sure hundreds in the
community”.
Guests for the evening included Minister for
Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities
Priyanca Radhakrishnan and Honorary Consul
of India Bhav Dillon who spoke to a packedhall
audience in support of the cause and
recognize Shakti’s work within New Zealand
migrant and refugee communities.
Immigration New Zealand hires
100 as Beijing office shuts
“One of the issues that led me to stand for
Parliament in the first place was family violence
intervention and prevention largely because of
the years I spent working with Shakti,” said Ms.
Radhakrishnan.
“There is a lot to credit the organization for.”
Radhakrishnan also acknowledged how
domestic violence manifests differently in
ethnic communities. She cited findings from the
government’s 2020 Report on Family Violence
Death Review Committee: “14% of men who
used violence in intimate-partner related deaths
between 2009 and 2017 were of South Asian
origin. [That] is the third most frequently
recorded ethnic grouping in the data sets and
Asian women seek help at a lower rate than
other women as well.”
“There is a lot of work that we need to do
to support women and children to stay safe…
culturally-appropriate support that they can
access and attitudes to change in our community
as well.”
Dhillon also spoke on the importance of
women’s empowerment and the need to support
such efforts in immigrant communities.
“It is organisations like Shakti that unlock
the potential of migrant wahine who come
from so far away and get caught in an untoward
situation.”
Shakti means “strength” in Sanskrit and
various Asian languages. Shakti is a national
non-profit community organization that
specializes in advocacy and family violence
intervention services for migrant and refugee
communities of Asian, African and Middle
Eastern origins.
It has 12 centres in New Zealand and
commemorated its 25 years of service in 2020.
Victims of domestic violence can call Shakti’s
24hours/7 days a week crisis line for support on
0800 SHAKTI
RNZ
Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has taken
on 100 staff and is recruiting more as it
prepares to close its Beijing office.
INZ shed more than 300 jobs overseas as
it shut branches in the wake of the Covid-19
pandemic, but recruitment had been on hold
due to financial constraints.
It today announced its Beijing visa processing
office would shut by the end of July, joining
closures in Mumbai, Manila and Pretoria earlier
this year.
Before Covid-19 struck, the Beijing
office decided half of all New Zealand’s
temporary visas.
One overseas visa processing office will
remain - in Samoa - when the branch in China
closes, although risk and verification staff will
continue to work in other offshore locations.
“This is a continuation of INZ’s adaptation to
the impact of Covid-19,” a spokesperson said.
“INZ is taking this opportunity to reduce
costs, introduce advanced technology to
improve efficiency, manage offshore risk
more effectively and move visa processing
activities onshore.”
Some of the newly recruited staff in New
Zealand are understood to have been taken on
to process residence applications.
The government asked for 50,000 to 60,000
new residents to be approved in the last 18
months under the residence programme
(NZRP). The NZRP is the framework for
granting residence to skilled, family and
humanitarian migrants. With one month left
before the NZRP expires, it is 3500 away from
the lowest end of that range.
In a statement, INZ said that from January
2020 to last month it had approved 46,562
people for residence.
“INZ continues to ensure that resourcing for
the processing of skilled residence applications
remains in line with the levels agreed to under
the previous NZRP, as agreed with the previous
Minister of Immigration,” INZ border and visa
operations general manager Nicola Hogg said.
“Skilled residence applications are processed
in INZ’s Manukau office. As at 21 May 2021,
85 immigration officers are responsible for
processing skilled residence applications.
Residence applications take time to process
given how much there is at stake and the level
of scrutiny required for each application.
“Recruitment throughout Immigration New
Zealand’s onshore visa processing network is
under way, with 100 vacancies recently being
filled. This recruitment will allow INZ to
increase its onshore visa processing capacity.”
The government is reviewing how it will
draw up residence targets in future, alongside
policy work on the skilled migrant category.
"
Recruitment
throughout
Immigration New
Zealand’s onshore visa
processing network is
under way, with 100
vacancies recently being
filled. This recruitment
will allow INZ to
increase its onshore visa
processing capacity
Among skilled migrant residence visas, the
number of residents decided last month fell to
658, down from a high of 1925 in November.
Rejection rates increased from 7 percent to 21
percent over the same period.
A quarter of applicants have been waiting
two years for a decision.
For the past two months since March 2021,
INZ has been working on applications made in
August 2019.