Safer West
SAFE COMMUNITY RE-DESIGNATION APPLICATION
Introducing Our Waitakere 2006
Safe Community Re-designation 2 2006 Application
Message from the Mayor
Our communities face increasingly difficult challenges in addressing safety issues for their citizens. As our world becomes more complex it is important our local communities explore and implement ways to make our city a safer place for all.
The World Health Organisation’s Safe
Community Network provides a framework for
health and safety promotion as well as injury
prevention. As New Zealand’s first city to be
awarded WHO Safe Community accreditation,
Waitakere has always been committed to improving safety for individuals, children and families.
In 1993 we adopted the United Nations “First Call For Children” strategy and we are mindful of this commitment in all of our council agenda.
Our WHO accreditation has provided a greater focus on what needs to be done and what can be done to achieve a safer quality of life and it gives us a benchmark to reflect on how we are delivering the safe community principles; signalling direction of developments and measuring our progress.
Council is in the process of developing an action plan with the aim of declaring Waitakere a “City For Peace.” We believe adopting the principles of peace can provide a perspective towards helping our region to become a safer, more peaceful place. This complements the progress being made by Safe Waitakere and the Wellbeing process.
It is through partnerships between Waitakere City Council, our local communities and government agencies that we strive to make Waitakere such a great place to live. This collaboration fosters a shared commitment to finding new and innovative approaches to make our region a safer place to live and work. While there still remains much to be done, we see identifying, planning and implementing safety initiatives as part of our commitment here in Waitakere.
I am greatly troubled by the indications and statistics on what is happening in New Zealand but I am optimistic that by working together with the range of agencies we can look towards a more positive and safe future.
Bob Harvey QSO, JP Mayor