On Saturday 24 May 2025, the Kelston Community Centre — Te Pae o Kura, Hikurangi in West Auckland became the site of UPF New Zealand’s annual commemoration of the United Nations International Day of Families. Around 60 people attended — drawn from across Auckland’s diverse faith and community networks — for an afternoon centred on the 2025 UN theme: “Family-oriented Policies for Sustainable Development.”
The choice of Kelston as the venue reflected UPF New Zealand’s ongoing commitment to taking its events into different parts of the city — meeting people where they are, rather than always drawing them to a central location. West Auckland’s vibrant multicultural community was a fitting setting for an event that celebrates the family as the most universal of human institutions.
Opening in the Spirit of Aotearoa
The event opened with a prayer by Apostle Shannon Leilua of the Ratana Church — grounding the afternoon’s gathering in the spiritual values of Aotearoa and the Māori tradition of beginning communal occasions with karakia. It was a fitting start: the Ratana Church, rooted in the prophetic faith of New Zealand’s tangata whenua, has been a consistent partner in UPF New Zealand’s work, lending its spiritual voice to events across the year.
Geoffrey Fyers, Secretary General of UPF New Zealand, then delivered the UPF statement on the International Day of Families — articulating the organisation’s conviction that the family is not merely a social unit, but the primary institution through which human beings learn to love, to serve, and to belong.
Family-oriented Policies for Sustainable Development
The UN theme for 2025 resonated deeply with UPF New Zealand’s ongoing National Family Day Petition campaign — a campaign calling on the New Zealand Government to recognise 11 November as a dedicated national family day. The connection between family-oriented policy and sustainable development is, for UPF, a deeply held conviction: that a society which invests in strong families is investing in everything else worth building.
Sustainable development, in this understanding, is not primarily a matter of economic growth or environmental management — though it includes both. It is, at its foundation, a matter of human flourishing: of communities where people are loved and nurtured from birth, where the next generation is raised with values of responsibility and care, and where the bonds of family extend outward into a society of genuine mutual support.
Presentations
The programme featured presentations from two distinguished community leaders:
- Mrs. Anne Degia-Pala, QSM — a community leader recognised with the Queen’s Service Medal for her years of service to New Zealand communities, whose perspective on the role of strong families in community resilience carried the weight of lived experience
- Mr. Kenji Watanabe — Chairman of UPF New Zealand, who spoke on the role of families in building peaceful communities and on UPF’s vision for a New Zealand that honours family as the foundation of national life
Cultural Performances
The afternoon was enriched by performances that reflected the cultural diversity of UPF New Zealand’s community:
- IKPACT members Suresh Trivedi and Shashi — offering a musical contribution from the Indian Kiwi community that brought warmth and energy to the afternoon
- A choral presentation by FFWPU Youth — young members of the Faith Federation singing together in a performance that embodied the event’s theme: that families nurture the next generation, and the next generation carries the values of peace forward
A Community That Keeps Showing Up
Around 60 people came to Kelston Community Centre on a Saturday afternoon in autumn. They came from different suburbs, different cultural backgrounds, and different faith traditions. They sat together, listened together, and were fed — literally and figuratively — by what they shared.
UPF New Zealand is grateful to the Kelston Community Centre for hosting the event, to every presenter and performer who contributed, and to every person who made the journey to be there. The UN International Day of Families is observed every year on 15 May. Our commemoration came a week later, but it arrived with the same conviction: that families matter, that policies which support them matter, and that communities which gather to say so are doing something genuinely important.
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