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 three counsellors, a manager and a community engagement coordinator. All our staff are highly skilled, fully qualified and have ongoing professional development.
Our counsellors are both 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
As we reflect on another year, we are ever humbled by all the people who paved the way for us. All the successes we harvest are truly thanks to their dedication, compassion and love for our community.
For the year July 2022-June 2023, we received 495 referrals for our services, with 449 being related to family harm. We provided counselling to 53 clients for a total of 250 hours of counselling time.
We completed the second year of our strategic plan; for the next year we will continue to focus on improving our practices, complete our policies and procedures review and on the haoura of our kaimahi and Board Members.
Previous Year’s Reports
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.
How can we help?
We all feel overwhelmed sometimes. Especially when we are unhappy in our relationships or life gets hard. Motueka Women’s Support Link is here to listen and to help.
Our service is private, non-judgemental and safe.
Donate to
Women’s Support – Motueka
All the free support we provide is made possible by our funders and the generous donations of locals like you.