Cannons Creek Te Hiko Theory of Change

In 2007, the staff at Wesley Community Action noticed that despite a relatively healthy economy and employment levels, the Community Pantry as Wesley House was as busy as ever. This led the board to ask why that was happening, and the response was to collect together a wide group of people from the community to discuss what was happening, what they thought the issues were, and what they would like to see instead.

A local artist was employed to be the note – taker, and the diagram below evolved from the facilitated conversation.

Our theory of change

The Porirua East community has had to deal with depleted resources and community capital for too long.  This has led to the community becoming over reliant on external providers to fix their problems and a tendency towards chaos / instability. This pattern is draining the mana and limited wealth out of Porirua East.

We can change the trajectory for the community by strengthening community connections, mentoring local leaders, creating opportunities for people to dream and design solutions, and providing stable backbone support infrastructure. If we do this, they will be more empowered to work as a community, and innovate ways to plug the drain.

Once that drain is plugged, we will see abundance building up in our community, as the many forms of capital (economic, human, social / cultural, character, environmental) are captured and compounded as people contribute to and share wealth.