Ep 26: Patrick O’Conner: A celebratory notion of difference

Patrick O’Conner’s life has been with people and communities, and for the marginalised. He grew up in a Christchurch home of six children that was shaped around practical, Catholic values and with his father’s reminder that your work is to be “kind and charitable.” Involvement in 1969 with the anti-Springbok tour fed into the learning about the consequences of injustice. But, too, that there is always work to be done at home. What he has witnessed and been a part of paints a picture that goes against the caricatures often presented of Christchurch. A city that is now home to 203 different ethnicities: the first city in New Zealand to have a Refugee and Migrant Forum; the first to have a Multi-Cultural Advisor and a Multi-Cultural Centre. In 1991, together with Herman Ah Kuoi, Patrick set up PEETO – Pasifika Education and Employment Training Organisation. Inspired initially by the richness of Samoan culture, PEETO led from Pasifika communities into much other work with refugees and migrants in Christchurch. You work ‘with’ and not ‘for’ because it’s a two-way business learning of dignity and much more.