On Saturday 25 May 2024, the auditorium of the Te Tuhi Art Centre in Pakuranga, East Auckland, became a room full of generations. Grandparents and grandchildren. Faith leaders and youth workers. Musicians from the Far North and dancers from the Chinese community. More than 60 people of all ages and backgrounds had come to celebrate the United Nations International Day of Families — and the atmosphere, from the moment the programme began, was one of genuine joy.
UPF New Zealand’s annual commemoration of this day has become one of the most eagerly anticipated events in the organisation’s calendar — a gathering that manages to be simultaneously formal (with distinguished speakers and structured programming) and deeply human (with music, laughter, and the kind of connection that happens when people from very different worlds discover how much they have in common).
Opening the Celebration
MC Garpreet Singh opened the programme with warmth and good humour, before Geoffrey Fyers, Secretary General of UPF New Zealand, delivered the UPF statement on the significance of the International Day of Families. Geoffrey’s remarks situated the afternoon’s celebration in the broader global context — the United Nations’ recognition that families are the foundational unit of sustainable human development, and that policies which support strong family life are among the most important investments any society can make.
Interfaith Panel: What Does Faith Say About Family?
The intellectual and spiritual centrepiece of the programme was a thoughtful interfaith panel discussion that brought together four voices from four faith traditions — each reflecting on what their community believes about the family, its sacred role, and its place in the project of building a more peaceful world:
- Dr. Zain Ali — Honorary Academic at the University of Auckland, who offered the Muslim perspective on family as a trust from God and a foundation of moral formation
- Mr. Levi Singsam — from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sharing the LDS conviction that families are central to God’s eternal plan
- Miss Avneet Singh — Sikh Youth representative, offering the Sikh understanding of family as the first community in which we practice the values of equality, service, and devotion
- Mr. Amon Watanabe — of the Youth Service Programme, FFWPU, sharing a young person’s perspective on family as the school of love
The panel was not a debate. It was a conversation — and one that revealed, beneath the genuine differences of theology and tradition, a shared conviction that the family is something sacred, something worth protecting, and something that gives meaning to the lives built within it.
Cultural Performances
Between the speeches and the panel, the afternoon was alive with music and performance:
- The Ratana whanau brass band — musicians who had made the journey from Kaitaia, in the Far North, to be part of the celebration. Their presence, and the distance they had travelled, said something about how much this gathering meant to those who came.
- An LDS Church Youth Duet — a moving musical presentation from young members of the faith community in Manukau
- The Botany Down Chinese Association — a graceful representation of Chinese classical music and dance, bringing another layer of cultural richness to the afternoon
- Japanese Youth Volunteers — who presented two short video presentations on family and service, offering a window into how young people across the Pacific understand their responsibility to both
Refreshments and Community Connection
Following the programme, attendees gathered for refreshments and informal conversation — the part of the afternoon that is, in many ways, the most important. The bonds formed over shared food and honest conversation are the actual fabric of the community UPF New Zealand is working to build. People who came as strangers left as something closer to neighbours.
The UN International Day of Families is observed globally on 15 May each year. UPF New Zealand’s celebration came a week later, but arrived no less wholeheartedly. The conviction animating it was simple and ancient: the family is not merely a social arrangement. It is the first place where we learn to love — and in that learning, the beginning of everything else worth building.
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