If you find rocks with the word ‘welcome’ painted on them, it’s because it’s Welcoming Week in Tasman.
Throughout the week, events have been planned around the region to help people new to the community feel included.
Locals have also been painting welcome rocks and dropping them around the community as a way of saying welcome to newcomers.
This is Tasman’s third annual Welcoming Week that includes music, art or just connecting over a cuppa.
Tasman District Council’s welcoming communities officer, Birte Becker-Steel, says the idea of holding different events through the week is to bring both new and existing residents together. That doesn’t stop locals taking some baking or simply introducing themselves to the newbies in the neighbourhood.
She knows firsthand what it is like to move to a new place after moving to New Zealand from Germany 14 years ago, then to Tasman just over two years ago and a new neighbourhood 18 months ago. In the latest move, a neighbour brought some baking around to welcome her into the neighbourhood and that was a wonderful way to be greeted.
Birte says it can be challenging to make friends in a new place and the national initiative of
Welcoming Week is one way of making it easier.
“Some people find it easy. They arrive and find somewhere to live and work and start making their social connections.
“For others, it is not that easy. In my experience, a lot of adults find it challenging to make new friendships.
“So many people work from home and we can do everything from home – even yoga on YouTube. So, you don’t even have to leave the house so much now. Making true friendships is really hard in our twenty-first century.
“The needs are certainly higher when you move from a different country and possibly speak a different language.”
While Welcoming Week has been an opportunity for anyone – new to the area or not – to get together at different events, Birte says the ideal is to be welcoming to everyone throughout the year.
“Check out your neighbourhood and see if someone is new there. It doesn’t take much effort and doesn’t have to be complicated.”
