Community Engagement Report for developing a National Action Plan Against Racism and community remembrance as a means to influence our actions going forward. We encourage [the Plan] to include opportunities for New Zealanders to remember our history and to collectively recognise events that are significant to New Zealand’s diverse population. When we remember the past, we are empowered to not make the same mistakes in the future. Intercultural and cross-sectoral work In tandem with being able to fully exercise one’s own cultural rights, participants identified the need for intercultural work and for support to ensure it was successful. Many called for increased intercultural interactions, saying we need to “maximise direct contact between ethnicities as much as possible”. One submission commented: Facilitating conversations in a conducive setting is very helpful for enabling people to listen to each other’s stories and to be heard; to have the opportunity for their mind to be opened; to develop their thinking and understanding about racism, and to gain practical ideas about the ways they can contribute to building race unity. Some participants called for intercultural guidance to be developed to support these intercultural interactions, saying we need a: Go-to guide for all the culture in NZ [setting out] how you would engage with them compared to others (if you’re saying hello to a Pākehā you would often try to shake both male and female’s hands, if they were Muslim this may end up being offensive as you should only shake the man’s hand). Some participants noted that racism pits different groups against each other and that tensions exist between and within minority groups. Such tensions can be exacerbated by government actions: “dividing resources by ethnic groups increases tensions between minority groups”. New Zealand Human Rights Commission One person commented “we need to have some important conversations ourselves as ethnic communities and the interethnic racism that exists between our communities.” This included examining “how we look at indigeneity [which] comes from our home country”. Some participants noted the need to examine the experiences of those with multiple ethnic identities, with one identifying the differential treatment of “full versus afakasi”. Participants agreed that Pākehā needed to do the work to eliminate racism, particularly to “step up and work with other Pākehā, especially those in leadership roles” and “no longer rely on Māori, Pacific and BIPOC (black, Indigenous and people of colour) to do all the work. This needed to happen at all levels of society: We need to look at a government and organisational level, at how Pākehā worldviews and values determine our policies and structures, our systems and our ways of approaching things. Participants also agreed that silos between communities, particularly for groups engaged in anti-racist work, were not helpful. They felt there was a role for government to play in encouraging cross-sectoral work. An alternative proposed was: Having dedicated funding for race relations initiatives [which] would foster coherence between initiatives taking place in this area. Initiatives that address the impacts of racism on specific ethnic groups could be funded alongside those that focus on racism in general. … It would be especially powerful if this funding could be used for a range of purposes, from established community programmes to small-scale pilots, evaluation activities and academic research. 63