Gael Surgenor - I am Driven to Make a Difference in People’s Lives and Make Things Better

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Dec 10, 2017
by Mirva Villa
Gael Surgenor - I am Driven to Make a Difference in People’s Lives and Make Things Better

Director of community and social innovation discusses challenges affecting South Auckland

Gael Surgenor, pictured above, sitting in the Chinese Room at Schloss Leopoldskron (Picture: Salzburg Global Seminar/Mirva Villa)

“I think the big challenge for us is the growing gap between people who are doing well, and people who are really disadvantaged: in employment, in incomes, in education and in health. There’s a big issue around child poverty in New Zealand. Recently we had a change of government and the prime minister took on child poverty as her responsibility, so that really shows how important it is to the new government,” Gael Surgenor says, speaking at the Salzburg Global session, Building Healthy Communities: The Role of Hospitals.

Surgenor is the director of community and social innovation at The Southern Initiative (TSI), a program which is part of the Auckland Council family. Its purpose is to amplify innovation in South Auckland.

The region has the biggest concentration of social and economic challenges in New Zealand, according to Surgenor. The population is young and  the level of unemployment is high, the incomes are low, and there are a lot of health issues.

“But it also means that South Auckland has a lot of opportunities,” Surgenor says, adding that it’s an area of economic growth. “It’s also a very creative community, it’s diverse, it’s young and there’s a whole lot of assets and strengths associated with that we we need to tap.”

TSI focuses on three main priorities. It grows the shared prosperity of people living in Auckland, it builds resilience in the community, and empowers families and children.

Employment and skills–improving initiatives have been put in place to help especially the young people to find jobs, and for local entrepreneurs to secure their place in the economy.

One of the initiatives to empower local youth was to invite them to have their say on local matters through an online platform. The young people can upload their own ideas, or respond to questions or calls and receive micropayments in return.

“Young people have fed back to us that it has created a safe space to share their ideas, to have a voice and help them to think. It’s not like Facebook where you like what someone has uploaded. In order to earn the micropayment, you have to think about the question and create a response.”

Young people have been asked to share their views on a variety of issues. Surgenor explains that South Auckland has a big problem with window washers - people who approach cars at traffic lights in anticipation of being paid for the service. A 16-year-old window washer was recently killed after being run over by a car, so getting young people to think about the dangers of it is important. Another call asking young people’s views on child poverty received around 200 responses.

Building resilience in South Auckland is focused on what new technologies enable, and what that’s going to mean to the future of work in the area.

“South Auckland has been a community that’s been very heavily impacted by the waves of social and economic change, so we want to make sure that the community is a bit more resilient to the change that’s coming,” says Surgenor. South Auckland has a very strong DIY-culture, she adds. New technologies have enabled people to innovate and create.

The third focus of TSI is on Whānau: families and children thriving. Health and social care services in New Zealand are delivered by the central government agencies, so the council aims to empower families through other means.

Surgenor has spent her whole career working in community development, social justice and human rights. From starting at a community law center, to working for Ministry of Social Development and now for the past five years at Auckland Council, she’s always been driven by one, simple thing: “making a difference in people’s lives, making things better”.

Seeing how the support and accompaniment of the council helps to drive positive change in the community is something Surgenor has found fulfilling.

“One really rewarding thing is working with a group of grassroots leaders, like the parent leaders from our cluster of six schools, and observing the confidence and the development of those leaders, and their empowerment and what they are making happen for themselves… and their community.”


The session, Building Healthy Communities: The Role of Hospitals is part of Salzburg Global Seminar multi-year series Health and Health Care Innovation in the 21st Century. This year’s session is held in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To keep up to date with the conversations taking place during the session, follow #SGShealth on Twitter and Instagram.

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