One of the highlights of this year’s Outdoors Forum was the How to Engage Diverse Populations session on Day 2. Outside of keynote speakers, this session received the highest ratings in the feedback survey. Andy Woodhouse of the Duke of Edinburgh (DoE) was a very fitting facilitator with his years of experience with all walks of life. Andy has spent most of his DoE career working on an inclusion remit to increase the diversity of Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Participation which includes Disabilities, Refugees, Migrants, ‘At Risk Youth’ and Teenage Parents. He wrote the Special Education Duke of Ed Training Manual. Andy holds a Post-Grad in Youth and Community work as well as Tramping and Climbing Qualifications and is a house hold name is NZ Outdoors these days, and very appreciated by NZRA for his contributions to the forum this year.

Here is a short brief on who presented. Full presentations are available on the members section of the NZRA website.

Richard and Jo showed the range of activities that are currently being undertaken with Blind and Low-Vision participants of all ages. Their videos gave some thoughtful insights into how people cope with losing their vision and an understanding of the range of vision that “Blind and Low-Vision” encompasses. The activities available include Tandem Cycling, Sailing and Walking and they are always in need of volunteers to pair up with willing blind adventurers.

Useful hints and tips were given around how to structure activities for blind people to make them stress-free and relatively safe.

Winston’s upbeat presentation gave good advice on how to engage with Samoan and other Pacific Island cultures. This included understanding some cultural things such as not making eye contact with your elders, which can be misinterpreted as a lack of respect by Palagi staff when in fact the opposite is true.

Good examples were given as to how Pacific People’s engage with the outdoors and what motivates them to do so. Fishing is high on the list as are big family or cultural events and sports.

Shanan described the main types of Chinese inbound Tourist and the types of activities they like to engage in from a quick “Golden Triangle Tour” which encompasses the main North Island tourist sites between Auckland and Taupo, to Tramping and Kayaking. Inbound Chinese Tourism is expected to grow significantly and a chat over coffee with Shanan would be highly recommended if you are seeking to work with clients in this market.

Estella gave an often hilarious presentation on working with Chinese people who are resident in New Zealand rather than tourists. Her insights into how the thinking of Chinese NZ residents changes over time from those who still live in China were quite a surprise. Most useful of all was her advice on how to motivate Chinese Teenagers to listen to safety instructions and how to convince Chinese parents to allow their children to engage with outdoor activities. It isn’t about safety but rather about achievement.

Mushafiq Bhat from the New Zealand Muslim Association joined us for the panel discussion and was able to input into the demystification of how Muslim culture works in New Zealand especially around gender-segregation. A fact to note is that one third of all NZ Muslims were born here.

Dick Lancaster (who is himself blind) of the Blind Foundation joined us for the discussion also and was asked about terms of reference when dealing with bind people and how not to cause offence. Dick’s advice was that only in the first year of blindness (when one is born sighted) do these sensitivities really cause issues; it seems they are a resilient bunch.

Winston was asked to expand on how to work with Pacific Island populations and the session could have gone on for the rest of the day due to the interest generated and the insights to be gained from the speakers.

Please look up their presentations online and when looking at working with diverse cultures, or even if you do already, it is clear that these representatives are able to inspire and enlighten you. It also shows, and this underpins the theme of the forum, that it is essential to have input from diverse communities and cultures well before engaging with them as clients or customers and that there are some very credible advocates available to you. It may change how you do what you do or even what you do, the future is diverse and so are the opportunities for the sector.

While the theme was Diversity, outside of the How to Engage Diverse Populations session, it is recognised that the speaker line up was mostly white mature male (we need to be careful here ;-P). Is this a reflection of our industry and if yes, then it is even more pertinent to follow the advice to ‘engage’. Look around you, ask how you can help. Lets carry this theme forward and aim to have a diverse pool of inspirational people to learn from in the future.