Community Events and Outreach

Public Speaking: Since my first press release in 2013, I have regularly engaged with a wide public audience via popular publications, social media, public lectures and radio. I have given many public talks about the Kalimpong project and my recent land/history study - from museum talks to dinner events, charity lunches and presentations to community groups such as family history and rural organisations.

Community Events: in 2014, upon completion of my PhD, I hosted 70 Kalimpong descendants for a 3-day get-together in Dunedin. Most came from the North Island. The programme included a public lecture, photo-sharing sessions, a film-screening, a bus-tour of the city and a visit to the exhibition I held at Toitu Otago Settlers Museum. This wonderful opportunity for sharing a hidden and constrained family history was repeated in 2017, when I organised another ‘reunion’, this time in Upper Hutt, near Wellington in the North Island (photograph below). Again a large contingent of descendants enthusiastically took part.