Ethnic Communities Violence Prevention programme

The Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD) Ethnic Communities Violence Prevention (ECVP) work programme aims to address violence within ethnically diverse communities. This programme aligns with MSD’s commitment to Te Aorerekura, focusing on Action 23 of the first Action Plan: Developing prevention programmes for ethnic communities.

The programme focuses on delivering culturally sensitive and responsive approaches to preventing family violence and sexual violence (FVSV) for the ethnically diverse communities of Aotearoa New Zealand. Please note that we use the Ministry for Ethnic Community's definition to describe ‘ethnic communities'.

The ECVP programme draws on evidence gathered during the development of Te Aorerekura – National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violence and Sexual Violence, MSD’s own work, engagement with other Ministries, and key literature and evidence across the years.

Community engagement to initiate the kaupapa

To set the foundations of the work programme, the ECVP team engaged in workshops with communities across the motu. This was to better understand FVSV in ethnically diverse communities and explore potential solutions that may work for them.

Building on previous government engagements, the ECVP team hosted 14 sessions across the country over July 2023 to better understand FVSV within ethnically diverse communities. Five engagement sessions were held online and nine were in-person, in the following regions:

• Auckland x2
• Christchurch
• Dunedin
• Hamilton
• Invercargill
• Napier
• Palmerston North
• Wellington

During these engagements, representatives discussed various forms and dynamics of FVSV impacting ethnically diverse communities on both interpersonal and systemic levels. These conversations ensured that communities played an active role in shaping the programme's direction, while also helping MSD establish partnerships across the country.

Other foundational activities for the programme, included:

• A comprehensive literature review
• Development of a Theory of Change (ToC) and a Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) framework
• Detailed planning informed by community insights

Primary Goals of the ECVP Programme

During the first phase of the programme, key goals for ECVP included:

• Supporting community-led prevention activities tailored to the needs and aspirations of ethnically diverse communities
• Resourcing and upskilling ethnic community organisations engaged in FVSV prevention
• Generating deeper insights into the experiences, challenges, and needs of ethnically diverse communities through research and evidence-based programming
• Building a strong evidence base that informs future policy and investment decisions.

Below, you can explore more about ECVP community-led programmes, research and evaluation, community engagements, and resource/s.

Community-led projects

The work programme included two key, time-limited, community-led projects:

• The South Asian Auckland trials
• The Ethnic Communities Innovation Fund project. (Please note that the fund is no longer open.)

Read more about these projects

Research and Evaluation

The ECVP programme has a strong research and evaluation focus. This is to contribute to the growing evidence base of issues related to FVSV in our diverse ethnic communities in Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as identify solutions to help address and prevent violence and abuse.

The ECVP programme is now in its final stages of research and evaluation. The evaluation is based on the foundational Theory of Change (ToC) and the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) framework developed for the programme.

An outcome and process evaluation has been carried out, focusing on the Ethnic Communities Innovation Fund (ECIF) project and South Asian Trials (SAT). This evaluation includes:

• Interviews with providers and participants
• Site visits and focus groups
• Surveys and monthly reporting
• Monitoring tools such as community readiness and mobilisation assessments (used by providers in the South Asian Trial in Auckland)

Alongside the evaluation, several research projects by academic and community researchers are underway or currently in the process of being completed.

The ECVP team will be working on collating and publishing the research findings. Once they are ready to be shared, they will be uploaded on this webpage.

These findings help strengthen our understanding and guide future prevention work for ethnically diverse communities.

For more information, please contact the MSD team at ecvp@msd.govt.nz.

‘Third Culture Kids’ Love Better campaign

The ECVP work programme collaborated with Love Better - MSD’s youth prevention campaign - to engage young people from ethnically diverse communities in FVSV prevention.

Love Better delivers media content created by ethnically diverse people to promote safe and positive relationships. Young authors from diverse communities were invited to share their stories on the complexities of relationships and these were published on the Love Better website.

Also published on the website and on social media, is the ‘Third Culture Kids’ campaign for ethnically diverse youth, which was launched in September 2024 and ran for six months. Six episodes were aired, led by actor and content creator, Marianne Infante, who partnered with other creators that have personal experiences of being from a ‘third culture’. They opened up and shared their experiences of navigating relationships and breakups.

During this time, there were over 1.1m engagements with the content, over 31 days total watch time and over 12,000 clicks to the Love Better website. The content performed well and drove very strong sentiments, in relation to likes, comments, shares and saves, and was nominated for an award.

‘Our Culture, Our Pride: No Excuse for Abuse’ – Family violence booklet for ethnically diverse communities

The ECVP team, in collaboration with the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, Shakti and Te Puna Aonui Ethnic Communities Network, has updated, redesigned, and translated the Our Culture, Our Pride: No Excuse for Abuse booklet into 13 languages: Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Pashto, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil and English.

This resource raises awareness of different forms of FVSV that can affect ethnically diverse communities and provides information on prevention and accessing support.

You can access and download a digital copy of the booklets in the language that you prefer by clicking on any of the links below:

If you are interested in ordering free hard copies of these booklets for your community, please order them through the E Tū Whānau website, or get in touch with the team at ecvp@msd.govt.nz. Please note that there are limited quantities of the hard copies.

What do we know about family violence and sexual violence prevention in Aotearoa New Zealand's ethnic communities and what are the gaps in the evidence?

Between January and March 2023, Insights MSD conducted a rapid evidence review to identify effective strategies for preventing FVSV in ethnically diverse communities. The review explored ways to engage ethnically diverse people in prevention efforts and highlighted critical evidence gaps.

The review informed the ECVP work programme, established within the Māori, Communities and Partnerships group to address the unique needs of ethnically diverse communities in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Key strategies identified include:

• addressing underlying drivers of violence
• raising awareness through education
• engaging communities in culturally informed ways
• involving key community leaders
• building trust with community organisations
• strengthening engagement with diverse communities.

This work has underscored the need for further research to better understand the prevalence and experiences of FVSV in these communities.