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Volunteer work acknowledged by Police
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29/04/2015. 15:56
Jessica Phuang
Jessica Story Telling
As a way to say thanks to the more than 120 volunteers who helped Police around venues, fan zones and transport services during the ICC Cricket World Cup matches in Auckland, Auckland City District Police have invited them all to an awards ceremony and dinner at the Auckland Town Hall on Saturday May 2.
Volunteers from Community Patrols of NZ, Auckland Safety Patrol, along with Pacific and Maori Wardens offered to be the link between the public and Police and provided much needed support during the tournament. These well- established groups regularly operate throughout the Auckland region, working alongside Police most weekends and during other special events.
Inspector Joe Tipene, who coordinated the volunteer schedules, said the time and effort provided was invaluable.
“The work undertaken by the volunteers to help make people feel and be safe while they travelled to and from games contributed greatly to the success of the CWC in Auckland,” Mr Tipene said.
The Auckland Safety Patrol (ASP) comprises several ethnicities including Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Korean, African, Indian and European. They patrol alongside Police Officers at several Auckland events or if there is a need for increased Police representation.
Jessica Phuang, Auckland City District Ethnic Liaison Officer, set up the ASP in August 2009 in response to feedback from the Asian communities.
“Many Asian people commented to me that they wanted to see more Police presence, in the form of foot patrols around the city,” said Ms Phuang.
“I thought the best way to achieve greater representation of Police on the streets would be by using people who were looking to be Police Officers, in a volunteer way.”
Today the ASP has 129 members, most of whom are aiming to become Police recruits. This was another reason Ms Phuang started the group.
“I wanted to help ethnic people find a good career and support them to be successful,” she said. “A lot of them feel there are too many barriers to becoming a Police Officer and think they can’t achieve the correct standards of fitness or language. They register their interest but do not pursue a career, which is something I wanted to help change and provide support to move forward.”
During the Cricket World Cup the volunteers worked in two shifts on game days - day shift between 10am and 5pm and late shift between 5pm and midnight.
They patrolled the trains, fan zones and trails, Britomart and the Eden Park surrounding environment. Their primary role was to provide a crime prevention presence, as well as to assist and support anyone in need until Police, if required, could attend.
Senior members of Auckland City Police along with Maori, Pacific and Ethnic staff will be present at the May 2 ceremony as a mark of respect and gratitude to the volunteers who contributed so much to the success of CWC in Auckland.
Profile:
Yan Li, a 34 year-old website manager/IT administrator for a pharmaceutical company, has been an Auckland Safety Patrol volunteer since September last year and is doing all the right things to become a Police Officer.
Yan, a Chinese national, is enthusiastic about community policing and enjoys learning from those in the know while ‘on the job’.
“I have received valuable advice from an experienced senior Police detective, had the opportunity to join real Police operations with frontline officers and got first-hand experience of what it means to be a Police Officer,” Yan says.
“In one operation, I actually helped to detain an offender - at the officer’s request - and discovered some methamphetamine on him. This encouraged me even more to further pursue my dream of becoming a Police Officer.”
Auckland Safety Patrollers receive legal, security, English literacy, psychometric and physical training to help them overcome difficulties and meet the requirements for entering the NZ Police College.
Profile:
Krisztian Berta is a tiler and has been running his own business since 2010. He applied to join Police in January 2013 but, after passing all psychometric tests and physical requirements, he didn’t quite make the grade when it came to the ‘verbal reasoning’ aspect of it. He joined Auckland Safety Patrols a few weeks later in June 2014 and, with the support of the group, has started a Unitec course to improve his English and prepare for another assessment in July.
Krisztian, a Hungarian, loves gaining experience through participating in Police operations, especially seeing how Police handle various situations and what’s required when they’re at stations and on the streets.
“It’s hard work but I enjoy every minute of it. Police do a brilliant job keeping us safe. I truly believe it’s good to be a part of it when you can help people who are in need and give back to our community as much as we can.”