2020 New Zealand Law Awards
Wayne Marriott - finalist, mediator of the year
I am deeply honoured to have been selected as a finalist for this year's awards. With such an honour comes great responsibility. This responsibility is two-fold. Firstly, to the people I serve. I am forever grateful for their support of my efforts to assist them in finding peace. Without them, and their recommendation, my private practice would have been a greater struggle. Their confidence in my work is tomorrows word of mouth recommendation.
An example of this is, "We appreciate the hard work you put into our staff at our factory. We see the results regularly", secondly to my fraternity, where I contribute to the professional development of practice development and the education of practitioners. I view the importance of professional development as a transformation of the delivery of mediation within an evolving conflict landscape. "Wayne found ways to connect with people who had no faith that their problems or disputes could be aided by mediation".
From April 2019 to March 2020, I continued to define and redefine my practice in line with my clients' need. My focus has been to provide a mix of modalities (mediation, facilitation, leadership training, coaching, and supervision) to clients that are not always certain about what they want and need. This flexible and nimble approach to service provision is supported by conflict analysis abilities learned from acclaimed peacebuilders at the Eastern Mennonite University, Virginia, United States where I completed a Master of Arts Degree in Conflict Transformation (2016-2018).
I call myself a peacebuilder to encompass all of my practice modes. A key attribute of peacebuilding is the independence that the practitioner brings to the conflict. The importance of this high-level neutrality played out following the March 2020 Mosque shooting in Christchurch. Violent extremism had come to our back door. While not employed by any agency to act in response to the event, I understood my work was to reach out to people affected and simply listen quietly. Their stories guided my peacebuilding. Firstly, I talked with people I knew in the Muslim community. I found people I know were wounded. A network of more people gave me insight into the chaos that typically follows an event of this nature where formal support mechanisms become overwhelmed. Soon after I joined an advocacy group (Just Community) that had formed in the wake of the shooting, their mission was to advocate for a system-wide approach to the Government's response. The ongoing relationship witnessed a higher-level liaison with Government such as with the Prime Minister, Minister of Ethnic Affairs and the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the shooting. At the 'flax-roots' level, I began the community based "Welcome your Neighbour" initiative. It involved a four-step guide for people wanting to create an inclusive environment, that began with people merely placing a sign outside their front gate in six languages that read, "No matter where you're from, we're glad you're our neighbour (refer to supporting documentation). This was a busy period of pro-bono work. In late 2019 my work was recognised by the Resolution Institute of Australia and New Zealand with the Michael Klug award for excellence in local peacebuilding efforts. During this period, I published an article in the Resolution Institute Mediation Journal, an article titled, Responding to violent extremism following March 15th 2019 Mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand. This white-paper utilised findings from my 2019 research paper (The rise of participant-centric justice through restorative practice values) with my experience of the court process for victims of the March 2019 Mosque shooting. I proposed several theories of change that would (when implemented) increase therapeutic jurisprudence for all people, practitioners and public alike.
Additionally, my typical roles continued such as my representation on the membership committee of the International Ombudsman's Association, member of the Resolution Institute practice development group, coach for the AMINZ advanced mediation course all while adjusting my business practice over COVID lockdown to solely online coaching and supervision of the staff of various clients such as St John, Air New Zealand, Landcorp, ASB, Greater Wellington Regional Council, Downer, Foodstuffs, AsureQuality, Skills NZ and Apparelmaster.
