positive change
for New Zealanders
the twists and turns of the life course
From before you birth your life is being shaped and moulded, all the way throughout your life course to the very moment of your death. Picture this life course as a river, this river has a twisting path and is forced to follow a route due to immovable forces and momentary shifts in environment. The river has a force of its own, sections where this force is stronger and swifter, others where the water sits or swirls in lost eddies. The river, with its own forces, shapes the environment, even influencing the efficacy and persistence of the immovable forces! Self determination and personal responsibility!
However, not all is good: the person who we are, is shaped by factors we were born into, factors beyond the control or direct influence of our parents or community. Then, as we grow and develop, forces mold us, events change us, systems fail us.
Suicide Deaths in New Zealand 1996 to 2013
This graph is an example of Government data we draw on to understand broader issues
Bringing Systemic Harm into Focus
Lifecourse has been set up to raise awareness of faults and errors in legal and social processes, apply pressure to those responsible for managing those systems to fix them. We draw on academic research and government reports to understand the broader issues. For individuals, we ask for your story to understand how the system has affected you.
Link to action
In New Zealand, systems failures can persist for generations without any political will manifesting to change these. Our track record as a nation is perhaps better than many others, however, the measurement we should be using is an individualised assessment of each person's life course and to what part systems played. Our government, despite the technological advances available, does not have the capacity to measure anecdotes. We do, because we have your help!
Making Changes Occur
The stories about people's challenges are the key to beginning to understand that a systemic problem exists. This acknowledgement then allows an empathy-based research approach to be used to build some definition around the issues. The ideate phase of design thinking is where solution possibilities can start to show themselves, to be then developed into a coherent prototype that is then tested.
Link to action
Who is Life Course?
A group of passionate people who have experienced or observed systems hurting Kiwis and want to work towards to fixing these. Life Course is funded by subscriptions and philanthropists. Due to the highly political nature of what is needed to be done, the entity could not be set up as a charity read the rules here . The founders set up a New Zealand Limited Liability Company that has the non-profit purpose to repair harm causing legal and social systems to enhance the course of life for New Zealanders.
An example of addressing harm from a legal system is our Family Court Project
A social system change objective is achieved through our support for the Kowhai Foundation