English Language Partners NZ
communicate confidently and effectively in English is essential for successful settlement in Aotearoa New Zealand. Also, shared learning among people of different cultures benefits our communities by promoting mutual respect and understanding.ELP is New Zealand’s largest not-for-profit organisation working with migrants and refugees from 23 locations around the country. As an organisation they say they have tended to be late ITC adopters. This is for a few reasons; the main one being that with limited funding, resources have to be prioritised.
There is a gap between what the government provides by way of funding, and meeting the real need out there. IT budgets can often fall further down the list of priorities than providing adequate programmes to meet the immediate needs of learners.
It may also be that as managers are constantly engaging in face-to- face client contact, that keeping up with IT developments is not a major priority.
But it’s becoming more apparent to them that if they were to continue to fall behind with their ITC investment that this could be to the detriment of what services they can offer their volunteers and learners.
They say they’re keen to promote full participation in the community for learners and their communities, so it’s important that the best opportunities to do this are available to them. Certainly, local centres play a hugely significant role here. Their ability to access up-to-date technology is now considered extremely important.
“So, we recently upgraded our computers and thanks to TechSoup were able to upload the new Windows 7 package on all computers. It’s been fantastic for the team as previously all computers had different software and were therefore often not compatible, says Birgit Grafarend-Watungwa, ELP Manager from North Shore, Auckland.
“Some team members had been asking for upgrades for quite a while. So, it was great that we were finally able to give them the very latest software and now everyone seems very happy with the new system.”
