When Dee Cresswell got the job of RISE’s General Manager in 2010 – her priority was keeping the lights on. RISE was teetering on closing. But through team-work, great staff, building team culture and delivering on its contracts RISE now has 27 staff across Nelson, Motueka, Marlborough, Kaikōura and the West Coast.

Hikitia! invites storytellers and artists to join the next phase of Ordinary Wonders in 2026. Amateur and established artists, will be paired with “ordinary wonders” stories written by community members. Artworks will be exhibited at Refinery ArtSpace and gifted back to storytellers.

Jared* started sharing he was “going through a bit of s#$t”, and suddenly his mates also began opening up.

Hikitia! was honoured to pilot the Ordinary Wonders art initiative – with a creative twist – alongside Arts and Media students from NMIT, guided by their tutor Klaas Breukel.

RISE is offering new peer support programmes for those who have experienced sexual harm.

Nelson men are invited to a special free event mark featuring workshops, networking and talks on topics concerning men.

This year, the Nelson Arts Festival has partnered with Hikitia! - RISE’s family violence and sexual violence primary prevention team.  

Hikitia! presents #METOO DOWNUNDER, a powerful conversation between authors Ali Mau (No Words for This) and Sonia Orchard (Groomed), chaired by Dr Nikki Evans (Manager, Hikitia!), and YES YES YES, an award-winning theatre piece on consent and teenage relationships.

RISE’s General Manager Dee Cresswell is retiring after 16 years at RISE’s helm.

Evaluations from RISE participants in 2024 -2025 show after working with RISE, people feel and are safer, acquire practical self-regulation tools, strengthen relationships, and develop the insight needed to disrupt intergenerational violence.

RISE is developing and deepening its cultural confidence as a Tangata Tiriti organisation. We are working with Thirdspace Aotearoa for a second year to uphold the mana of te ao Māori in our mahi and apply Te Tiriti-led practice.

RISE recently attended the launch of two new important initiatives designed to prevent harm online.

Miranda Warner is using her wide skills and contacts in her work as a community mobiliser with Hikitia!. Hikitia! is RISE’s ACC funded prevention mahi. She will continue as a facilitator on RISE’s non-violence group programme.

Sessions at RISE were like a refreshing jug of water. The jug was running out of water and then RISE came along and filled the jug up. I need refresher courses, so it was a good pick up, the tools I learnt made sense. 

RISE’s Hikitia! team hosted a hugely successful symposium in Whakatū Nelson. Read more about the event and the projects the Hikitia! team is working on with the community.

RISE has officially partnered with leading Australian workplace trainer Be There Group.

Working with RISE has helped a mother control her anger and transformed her relationship with her toddler.

The mahi (work) is underway at Hikitia! with the five new roles created at RISE through a new ACC contract now filled.

Attending RISE was one of the best things I’ve ever done. It’s made me a much better person, and a way better father. Every bloke I know, I tell them to go – do the course.

For RISE clinician Marissa working in the Family Violence sphere and working at RISE is professionally where she wants to be.

If Koreana was to tell people about the benefits of RISE he would tell them to come to the course for their aiga (whānau).

“Do it for your family.”