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Citizens
Advice Bureau – here for everyone!
Kia ora! Talofa lava. Malolo e leilei. Kia orana. Nee ho mar. Namaste. Hwan young hap ni da.
Nabad. Greetings!
Citizens
Advice Bureau (C.A.B.) welcomes people of every culture. Awareness Week for C.A.B. is 18-24 March.
It’s the time when the country’s 2,700 volunteers work hard
to publicise their bureaus and to make
sure that people in their community know that they are there for
them.
During Awareness
Week, C.A.B. will target people from Maori communities and those
from the wide range of cultures that make up New Zealand society. They want
to ensure that these groups know about the fantastic service Citizens
Advice Bureau provides in their community.
“It’s hard for people to appreciate the huge range of information that
Citizens Advice Bureaus have at their fingertips,” said Nick Toonen, CEO of the New Zealand Association of Citizens Advice
Bureaux.
“Our 88 C.A.B.s
can help people with anything and everything from information about
switching power suppliers to their rights if they get sacked to
their rights as a consumer. No
problem is too big or too small for C.A.B.!
“One of the crucial things about
our service from the public’s point of view is that it is free. Thanks to the volunteers who staff the bureaus
and the support of a range of community trusts and local councils,
we are able to offer a free person-to-person service staffed by
trained volunteers.
“The service is also impartial and
confidential so everyone who visits, phones or emails us has these
guaranteed.
“Often people go to a bureau with
a number of problems and bureau workers are only too happy to sit
down and help sort them out. If
they don’t have the information on hand, they will find it for them. They have an enormous computerised
database plus hundreds of pamphlets from almost every organisation
imaginable.”
For new migrants and refugees, the
Citizens Advice Bureau is an invaluable resource. “We want to ensure people who have moved to
New Zealand know that we can help
them with a whole lot of situations.
We have information on housing, their rights and responsibilities
as tenants, benefits, immigration issues, support groups, schools,
employment – the list is endless.
And many bureaus have people who can interpret in a number
of languages.”
To contact Citizens Advice Bureau
you can visit, or phone on our Telecom sponsored freephone
number, 0800 FOR CAB/0800 367 222.
Or visit our website, www.cab.org.nz.
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