About Us
We’re professional, committed and we care.
We want all women and their families within our community to be safe, well and empowered to meet their full potential.
We care. We’re accepting. We’re here for all women. Women’s Support Motueka (also known as Motueka Women’s Support Link) is a non-profit organisation specialising in family harm. We offer support, counselling, advocacy, crisis response and community engagement.
We support women to achieve tino rangatiratanga (self-determination). We respect you in your uniqueness.
We celebrate women of all ethnicities, incomes, cultures, sexual orientations, gender identities, ages and abilities.
Our People
We are a small, close-knit team of four counsellors, a manager and a community engagement coordinator. All our staff are highly skilled, fully qualified and have ongoing professional development.
Our counsellors are accredited with a Paetahi Tumu Kōrero / Bachelor of Counselling and are members of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors. Our manager is a social sustainability and funding specialist and our community engagement coordinator has an academic and activist background. All staff engage in external supervision and case management to keep practice safe and sustainable.
Our Board members are passionate about supporting their community. They bring a wide range of experience from fields including community development, education, law, financial services and communications. As a newly formed board, they will be leading our organisation’s strategic development and strengthening our presence in the community.
Our Story
Supporting local women for over 30 years!
Women’s Support Motueka started after four local women met at a Nelson rape crisis meeting in 1986 and decided they wanted to support local women. Because there was no money, they started out as a collective of volunteers, using a home phone number to take crisis calls from the police and women who had experienced sexual harm.
Before long, they were able to get a little funding and moved into Community House. We’ve been here ever since! Soon Women’s Support Motueka began supporting women who were experiencing family harm as well and the collective decided we would support any woman for any issue. That’s how we have continued to this day.
In the name of sustainability, we have recently changed from a collective to being governed by a Board of Members from our local community. This will free up the energy of our staff, so they can concentrate on the people we serve.
‘A cuppa’, our former logo relates to the flexibility of our services; people are welcome to drop in and have a cuppa with us while having a chat. This has been the case since the organisation was formed.
Annual Reports
For 38 years, Women’s Support Motueka has been grounded in care for women, whānau, and our community. Guided by strong values and a belief that there is always a way through, we continue to support people affected by family violence while strengthening prevention and early intervention.
Over the past year, we reviewed our strategic plan, strengthened partnerships, and invested in team wellbeing, service sustainability, and fundraising capacity. With the support of funders, volunteers, our Board, and community partners, we are growing our ability to raise awareness and support more people to live safely, with dignity and connection.
As we look ahead, we remain deeply grateful to everyone who supports our work and shares our commitment to safer, more caring communities.
This annual report shares the progress we have made, the challenges we have navigated, and the people who make our work possible.
Previous Year’s Reports
2023 – 2024
2022 – 2023
2021 – 2022
About our website
We are very excited and proud to share our website with you.
We were very lucky to be selected by CREATIVA for their Give Back 2021 project. We are so grateful for their generosity and beautiful work in creating our first ever website!
We are also launching our NEW Logo, designed by CREATIVA. This gorgeous design features manuka flowers, illustrated by local artist Amir James Vollweiler. We chose manuka as a symbol of healing and resilience. Not only are manuka famous for their healing properties, these native trees flourish after the devastation of forest fire.
Most of the photos on our website are taken by Adrien Paris a French photographer living locally. He chooses to photograph local outdoor and natural spots around the area, including the Motueka Sandspit and the Riuwaka Resurgence.
This has been a wonderful opportunity to reflect on who we are as an organisation and all the truly inspiring local women we serve.
