Colleagues from the Kaipātiki Project and The University of Auckland partnered on a project to capture the experiences of stakeholders to help identify the people in the local community who are food insecure and to identify ways to connect them with support to address this need. We aimed to establish a gap analysis of: where we have food insecurity in our community; where the interest/opportunities are to address this need; and what are known ways to connect the need with opportunities.
We invited local service providers across five local board areas in Auckland’s North: Kaipātiki, Upper Harbour, Devonport-Takapuna, Hibiscus & Bays and Rodney to share information about perceived needs related to food insecurity, actual and possible responses, and ongoing interest in supporting the needs.
Discussions about where food insecurity is most felt in communities resulted in three interconnected themes: income instability, isolation, and disconnection from soil.