Southland WEA
The Federation of Workers Educational Associations. Te Whetereihana o Nga Kaimahi Akoranga o Aotearoa. Southland WEA has been in Invercargill since 1915. Our house at 100 Esk Street is a community education centre, providing educational and cultural facilities to Southland people.
Download an MS Word file of our 2008 Term 1 courses (45Kb).
Who do we cater for?
Southland WEA provides low cost, non-assessed courses which are available to all adults. We aim with our courses to foster personal development and social involvement.
We target lower income families and beneficiaries for special attention because their limited incomes can exclude them from other educational opportunities.
What do we do?
We offer courses in response to stated community need. Let us know if you want to learn about something and cannot find anyone who is teaching it.
Our courses led to the formation of
- The Invercargill Citizens' Advice Bureau
- The Photographic Society, and
- The Arts Society.
We also have a tradition of community service and community development. We share our building with other voluntary organisations including the Stopping Violence Southland programme.
Funding
We are dependent for funds on the goodwill of our benefactors:
- The NZ Lottery Grants Board
- The Community Trust of Southland
- The Invercargill Licensing Trust
- The New Zealand FWEA
- Tertiary Education Commission
- James Hargest College Community Education
- Telecom
Our history
Our first home was in the office of the Southland Education Board in Tay Street in 1949. About 1967, the Board needed the office for its own use.
We had always wanted our own home. And we got it — thanks to the late Mr E R (Ted) Latham and the late Mrs Florence Day. When these two were President and Secretary they got a bank loan and bought Strang's Coffee House at 100 Esk St. It was officially opened by the Mayor on 6 March 1969. Our building is classified as a Historic Building. We have recently carried out extensive renovations.
The restoration of the historic WEA building was funded by:
- NZ Lottery Grants Board-Heritage
- The Community Trust of Southland
- The Invercargill Licensing Trust
- PH Vickery Trust
- SBS
- Southland Heritage Building Preservation Trust
- Southland Regional Heritage Development Fund
Our thanks to all of these organisations for their support.
What does WEA stand for? Workers Educational Association. The organisation began in Aotearoa / New Zealand in 1915 as a provider of community education for workers. Today the WEA continues to provide low cost education where there is a need.
Office Hours:
- Mon - Tues 10 am - 3.30 pm
- Wed 10 am - 12.30pm
- Thurs - Fri 10am - 3.30 pm
Co-ordinator: Lesley du Mez.
The book, Telling our stories, was published in 2005 to mark 90 years of the WEAs in NZ — download the book as a PDF (1 Mb file) or email us for a complimentary copy. See page 2 of the book for a table of contents for a direct link to the page about this scheme.