About Culture Matters

Diversity is an important part of any society. As an initiative Culture Matters recognises this by considering the underlying principles that apply in relation to diversity based on any dimension of culture including: age, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, class, and ethnicity.

Our objectives are to:

  • promote understanding of how to work more effectively in a culturally diverse environment
  • encourage and assist organisations to develop and apply policies which promote equity for cultural groups

Culture Matters is a project of the Auckland Workers’ Educational Association. AWEA’s other main project is the Treaty Resource Centre. Auckland WEA is a long-established, community-based adult education organisation which has a fundamental commitment to education that promotes a just and equitable society and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Specific values under which AWEA operates include:

  • where possible, it is preferable to support others to undertake work than to do it ourselves
  • we need to model good practices ourselves
  • providing consultancy on a sliding scale basis to ensure equity of access to our services