Friends of Arts Access Aotearoa

Creative artistic expression is central to our human need for identity and connection to others.

As a Friend, you can make a monthly donation and be kept up-to-date with events and activities throughout the year.

Your regular donation will support artists and arts organisations in the community and professional arts sectors; people with physical, sensory or intellectual impairments; and people with lived experience of mental illness.

Arts Access Aotearoa also advocates for the arts to be used as a tool for rehabilitation in prisons.

As a Friend of Arts Access Aotearoa, you will receive:

• the Arts Access Aotearoa In Touch e-newsletter, distributed at the beginning of each month. It features stories, profiles and information about the people and organisations we work with to increase access to the arts for everyone in New Zealand.
• regular updates and invitations to events specific to your region and throughout New Zealand.
• an invitation to Te Putanga Toi Arts Access Awards, held in the Banquet Hall of Parliament every year.

With your help, all people in New Zealand, now and in the future, can be included in the arts as artists or audience members.

For more information about joining the Friends of Arts Access Aotearoa, contact Dawa Devereux (E: info@artsaccess.org.nz T: 04 802 4349)

The programmes you support

Every dollar you donate will benefit artists, people and communities throughout New Zealand and if you wish, your donation can be applied to the area of our work you would most like to support:

Arts For All: increasing access to arts and cultural events for everyone.

“Saskia, who has low vision, loved the audio described performance of Still Life with Chickens. The skills involved in providing this accessible show resulted in Saskia asking when she can go to the next play. She came home and started making chickens out of pipe cleaners. Thanks, Circa Theatre! If you ever need animals made from pipe cleaners for props, you know who to call,” wrote Saskia’s mother after the performance.

Creative spaces: building the sustainability of community-based creative spaces throughout New Zealand

Kezia Bennett, a wheelchair user and founding member of WIDance in Wellington, says: “In WIDance, it doesn’t matter if you have a disability. The focus is on what you can do, not what you can’t – we often get reminded to adapt other people’s dance moves to fit our own bodies, challenge ourselves, and push our limits/stretch our comfort zone.”

Te Putanga Toi Arts Access Awards: celebrating individuals, groups and organisations that provide access to the arts.

“Sometimes art’s the only way you can express yourself and it helps you think about your life; think about things that you could do differently. See differently. And present yourself in different ways to people,” says one of the students involved in the Humans of Hendo project, presented the Arts Access Community Partnership Award 2018.

Arts in Corrections: using the arts as a tool supporting the rehabilitation and re-integration of prisoners.

“Thank you for showing me how to learn again. Your belief changed my life.'' A prisoner at the Otago Corrections Facility thanked Corrections staff for their support when he won a creative writing competition, set up by the Otago Daily Times, and a selection of books donated by the University Bookshop.