awea

Things took off in this decade, with the appointment of Kaye Green the first full-time paid AWEA tutor-organiser in December 1975. AWEA was a leader in adult and community education initiatives such as community school.

• The Association for Community and Continuing Education (now ACE Aotearoa) was formed in 1974, at a meeting called by the Auckland WEA, and attended by representatives of the university and the newly established community school.
• The 1976 Summer School explored Māori Land Issues. It was led by AWEA tutor-organiser, Kaye Green, who saw these issues as “being of much more profound significance than any other issues of inequality that we were looking at.”
• Legal rights courses were run in ‘halfway houses’ in Grey Lynn and Ponsonby. In 1977, AWEA supported the establishment of Grey Lynn Neighbourhood Law Office—the first Community Law Centre in Aotearoa.
• When Radio Pacific began broadcasting in 1978 the WEA Radio Collective was set up. The Collective delivered weekly educational seminars on air until 1980.
• There was a huge demand for AWEA’s adult literacy programme (which was informed by Paulo Freire’s ideas) and women’s studies courses.

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