Jethro Gardiner traveled a week with impactmania's founder, Paksy Plackis-Cheng, and international participants of the Women of Impact network. Jethro shares his experience, the learning he will bring to his work at the U.S. Consulate and how to represent a diverse voice at the conference table.
We thank the U.S. Consulate in New Zealand for supporting impactmania's Women of Impact program. Paksy interviewed 12+ impact makers in New Zealand. A number of women from the global network flew out to New Zealand for an intense week of personal and professional work and development.
impactmania's Women of Impact was awarded the U.S. Embassy Public Diplomacy Grant (2019). The U.S. Consulate supported 12 interviews and a week-long events in New Zealand.
Nowadays there are a lot of people using words like co-design. I remember when I did my first co-design master class. It was a three-day workshop, and I sort of slipped away. I had to find another Pacific person saying, “Isn’t this just what we do normally, or?” “That's what it is?” I was like, okay! I'm doing okay.
It is about the work, and it is about the people. Making documentaries is an ill-advised career really, so your heart better be in it! [Laughs.] It is the lowest budget; it takes ages. Most of the time you are just fishing. You know you are there trying to catch the best shot. You have to really appreciate that privilege.
As part of impactmania’s Women of Impact series, we are traveling to New Zealand in November 2019. A number of the women from the program will meet their peers for cultural exchange and to create economic opportunities and partnerships. The [...]
I will go back to the state of race relations in our country when I was growing up. My mom was acutely aware because of the opinions she heard about Māori. To anybody else, she was a white woman. She overheard a lot of comments.