Stitching a fabric of support with Nisa

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Social enterprise Nisa employs former refugees and migrants to make underwear from organic cotton and recycled materials. Siti Hajjar Sulaiman visits the Wellington workshop to meet founder Elisha Watson and the team. 

Photography: Nisa
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On the first floor of an unremarkable Wellington building is a busy sewing workshop where a remarkable social enterprise is being nurtured. 

Not every company can say they make underwear and clothing from organic and recycled materials, much less offer jobs that prioritise women from refugee and migrant backgrounds. But this is what Nisa is all about. 

The birth of a social enterprise   

Nisa, which means woman in Arabic, is the brainchild of Elisha Watson, the company’s chief executive officer. Elisha says it was “definitely the staff” who first influenced her to establish Nisa. 

While living in Germany a decade ago, Elisha saw firsthand the effects of anti-migrant and anti-refugee sentiments. “That scared me.” Elisha wanted things to be different in New Zealand and to be part of a welcoming society. 

Years later, having returned home to work as a litigation lawyer at a Wellington law firm, Elisha spotted an opportunity to do more than just advocate for the wellbeing of refugees and migrants. She was volunteering with a community law centre in its refugee and immigration legal team, as well as doing resettlement work with Red Cross. Consequently, she became close to several families whom she helped resettle in New Zealand, noticing their struggles in trying to find jobs and the despair they felt when their efforts failed. 

Elisha believed she could help the refugee and migrant communities more by providing them with the opportunities to shine and “really show what they’re made of.” 

“And so I decided to start a social enterprise, to do something about that and provide those opportunities,” she says. 

Intimate beginnings 

In September 2017, Elisha quit her job to focus on Nisa full-time. But the business really kicked off following a crowdfunding campaign that led to the creation of its online store in March 2018. Nisa now consists of an all-women team of 10. To date, Nisa has employed 19 people from refugee and migrant backgrounds, and seven New Zealand-born staff. Its goal is to build an alumni of 100 former staff who go on to inspire their own communities and set up their own businesses. 

“Our [employment] purpose isn’t really to hang onto people forever. It’s really to, I guess, upskill people. We view success as both people staying with us and people leaving,” said Elisha. 

Fun and a better future

It’s often been said that it’s not quite work if you’re having fun, and at Nisa it sure
looks that way. But this is not at all bad for the intimates maker, as its business –
designing, sorting, sewing, marketing,
packing and dispatching of organic
cotton underwear – still gets underway
seamlessly. The work is largely
accompanied by laughter and quiet
confident smiles amid the frequent
whirring and thumping of sewing
machines.
Indeed, some of the staff at Nisa
from refugee and migrant backgrounds,
including Queen Elizabeth Sudagar and
Gioryanni Ortega Ramirez, hadn’t known
fun and a better future
such work conditions would be the norm
before their arrival in New Zealand.
Absolute peace of mind was an alien
concept to Queen and Gioryanni, who
both experienced trauma and uncertainty
in their respective former homelands.

Queen, 38, worked at a toy factory
in Sri Lanka before leaving the country
nine years ago for Malaysia because of
“ethnic problems”. There, she found work
for several years at a factory that made
use of her sewing skills. Subsequently,
a meeting with officers from the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
in Kuala Lumpur led to Queen, her mother
and daughter, beginning new lives in
Wellington.
A year ago, through the Red Cross
Pathways to Employment programme,
Queen’s good sewing skills caught the
attention of Nisa. Gioryanni, too, found
work at Nisa from the same programme,
starting as a dispatcher, but she has now
moved on to sewing.
Gioryanni, 24, says the situation in
Colombia was very different compared
to New Zealand. She and her family
face a better future here as they can
earn a fair wage rate and explore study
opportunities. She says her English has
also improved significantly while working
at dispatch in Nisa. Her long-term goal is
to become a dentist.
Asked how they felt coming to work
to Nisa every day, Gioryanni and Queen’s
answers were immediate and empathic.
“I feel very good. I like to work here
because Nisa is like my second home,”
says Gioryanni, likening her present life
in New Zealand to a gift. “We can live in
peace [in New Zealand],” she adds. Queen
nods in agreement, the joy evident in her
eyes and smile.

Organic cotton: good all the way through 

It was a no-brainer for Nisa to use organic cotton fabrics and regenerated textiles, many of which are custom-coloured to specifications, in sewing its underwear, loungewear and swimwear products. 

Using organic cotton was a matter of principle and it’s practical, too, Elisha says. She knew the company could not be a responsible employer and producer if it had a product that would harm the planet. 

“We knew we had to be ahead of the curve there and we couldn’t just do one good thing at the same time as doing one not-so-good thing. It had to be kinda good all the way through,” says Elisha. People who gave pledges to Nisa’s crowdfunding campaign shared its environmental sustainability values. 

The first product Nisa sewed was organic cotton women’s briefs. Its line has now expanded into briefs for men, bralettes, camisoles, tops and pants, using organic cotton that was knitted in a Melbourne mill, and which has ACO (Australian Certified Organic) certification. The factory sources yarns from farms in India that are certified with the Global Organic Textiles Standard (GOTS). GOTS is the world’s leading standard of textile production in organic fibres. 

Meanwhile, Nisa’s swimwear is made from ECONYL, which is regenerated polyamide consisting of recycled ‘ghost’ fishing nets (nets that have been lost or abandoned at sea) and carpet waste. 

The Nisa team, from left to right: Queen, Stef, Luisa (at the back),
Elisha (front), Olivia, Lydia, Emily, Gioryanni and Pam.

Organic cotton growing uses 91% less water than conventional cotton growing.

Where next for Nisa?

Nisa was preparing to show its new collection at the New Zealand Fashion Week (NZFW) in Auckland when the country went into a lockdown prompted by New Zealand’s first cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant. The fashion week was one of the major casualties of Alert Level 4. But Nisa hasn’t fared too badly this time around, having learned what to do after the first lockdown in 2020. 

Elisha says that while the lockdown was hard for production, sales have been amazing as people are increasingly turning to buying online. During lockdown in 2020, their customers supported them with onlines sales with more orders coming from outside of Wellington, such as the rest of New Zealand, Australia, the US and the UK. It was the same this time around. 

Moreover, the lockdown has not slowed down Nisa’s creativity. At the time of writing, Nisa introduced a new print to its wide-ranging intimates collection that was designed by Brisbane artist Claire Ritchie. The company was also planning to introduce a few items from its new activewear range at NZFW. This new range includes leggings and tops made from recycled nylon. 

Nisa in brief

If something’s not sitting right with you, chances are you’ve yet to try on a pair of Nisa’s organic cotton undies. The company makes briefs for men and women, bralettes, loungewear, camisoles and pants, swimwear and a new activewear range at its Wellington workshop. The merino socks are all made in a factory in Norsewood.

Nisa Shop and Studio, Level 1, 99 Willis Street, Wellington
Open Monday–Friday 9 am – 5.30 pm,
Saturday 10 am – 4 pm
Contact: Emily Partridge, brand and content
manager, emily@nisa.co.nz, 04 390 6472
www.nisa.co.nz

The team is clearly excited about the product expansion, but would this mean Nisa could no longer call itself an intimates label? Elisha laughs and admits it’s a conundrum. “There is no real word that describes us – as we expand our product range – that really encapsulates what we offer.” 

For now, Nisa is content to be known as an underwear label, which Elisha points out is still its mainstay. 

Siti Hajjar Sulaiman is a Wellington-based freelance writer.

Weaving together strands of the organic world

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Bridget Freeman-Rock interviews former Soil & Health co-chair Marion Thomson, an active collaborator in the organic and biodynamic movement.

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Over the hedge at Papatūānuku Kōkiri Marae

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Taylor Aumua discovers what makes the māra kai at this marae so special.

Photography: Taylor Aumua
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Homemade compost

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Good compost grows healthy plants, and you can never have too much of it! Homemade compost is ideal if you can make it – here are a few tips from Wellington blogger, baker and gardener Elien Lewis, selected from her new book Homegrown Happiness. 

Photography: Elien Lewis

Homemade compost is the best thing for your garden. That sounds like a bold statement, but it’s true. Whether it’s compost in a bin, or you’re directly letting plants and organic matter decompose in your garden, it’s all about creating a nutrient-rich layer for the soil. A good quality compost only needs to be applied once or twice a year, and it will supply your soil and plants with the nutrients they need without the need for any added fertilisers.  

Composting at home can seem daunting. There are many books on composting methods that require precise layers, temperatures and amounts. In reality, nature is creating compost non-stop without being exact about it, so it doesn’t need to be that precise. A compost pile can give clear signs when something is lacking and, once you recognise these signs, it’s easy to make the necessary tweaks. 

I want to cover a few different composting options, because there is one for each and every home and section, no matter where you live. As well as feeding your garden, any organic material that you can save from landfill is a bonus. [Elien’s book also covers worm farming and bokashi – Ed.] 

A custom-made wooden compost bin
Elien Lewis and her garden

Composting basics 

Composting is how nature recycles organic materials. That includes all plant and animal matter. Composting is an aerobic decomposition method, which means it needs air and relies on aerobic organisms to break material down.  

A compost pile needs four things to work efficiently: 

  1. Carbon – the carbon component is made up of dry materials such as brown leaves, twigs, cardboard, straw and hay. It’s what gives the soil organisms the energy to work hard. The soil organisms oxidise the carbon, which generates heat in the pile. The carbon component of the compost pile is known colloquially as the ‘browns’. 
  1. Nitrogen – the nitrogen component is made of fresh organic material. This includes all fresh plant and food scraps, coffee grounds, fresh seaweed and grass clippings. Nitrogen encourages the organisms to reproduce. The nitrogen component is known colloquially as the ‘greens’.  
  1. Oxygen – this is a necessary component for the carbon to oxidise and is crucial for aerobic organism survival. 
  1. Water – this is needed in small amounts to assist the aerobic organisms with decomposition. 

A very rough ratio I follow for my compost is one part green to two parts brown, though I don’t get hung up on working out the exact amounts. If the balance is wrong, my compost pile will let me know.  

The exact ratio of carbon to nitrogen required for a well-balanced compost pile is a hot topic among gardeners. You may read about 25:1, 30:1 or even 50:1 carbon to nitrogen. Don’t worry – this doesn’t mean 50 parts of browns to one part greens. All organic material contains carbon, even the fresh green stuff, so a ratio of 50:1 is talking about the carbon from all the material in the heap, not just the browns.  

Making a compost pile 

A simple compost pile is easy to make. It can be made as a pile directly on the ground or in a designated compost bin. It involves layering the ingredients like a messy lasagne, alternating between browns and greens. Perfect, separate layers are not the goal here. They need to be a bit mixed. Once you’ve added in all the ingredients, give it a stir to help combine it.  

The brown component is responsible for adding carbon but also capturing air in the pile as twigs and leaves can create little air pockets. The fresh greens add nitrogen and water to the pile. Sometimes a little extra water can be added to the brown layers. A compost pile should be damp but not soaked. 

Finishing with a layer of browns on top hides the rapidly decomposing greens, which can create bad smells or attract flies.  

A compost heap like this can just sit and do its thing, and you can tip more organic material on top as you have it. Giving it a turn every few weeks will speed up the decomposition as, with each turn, you’re adding in more oxygen. For this, I love my steel compost-turning stick. It’s like a giant screw. I simply stick it into the pile and turn it, so it screws itself into the heap, then I pull it up and knock off what has been pulled up. It turns the pile without any hard work. 

A compost pile like this won’t get very hot (though turning it will generate more heat), so it can take between six months and a year to create usable compost. The bottom layer will be ready to use first. Once it’s dark brown, crumbly and sweet smelling, it is ready to use.  

A good quality compost only needs to be applied once or twice a year

How to tell if something’s wrong 

A well-balanced compost pile shouldn’t be smelly. When it’s turned, you should notice lots of worms, a bit of heat and signs it is actively breaking down.  

Photo: iStock/Annalovisa

Smells like ammonia 

This is a sign that there is too much nitrogen in the pile. The organisms in the compost pile release the excess nitrogen in the form of ammonia.  

A simple fix for this is to add more carbon-rich material, through a helping of browns. Stirring through a layer of ripped-up cardboard, shredded leaves or straw will help. 

Slimy and smells of rotten eggs 

This is a sign of a compacted or overly wet compost pile. Both can result in a pile that lacks oxygen. When there is not enough oxygen, the aerobic bacteria die, and the anaerobic ones take over. These bacteria, which survive without oxygen, are responsible for that rotting sulphur smell.  

Turn the compost to bring more air into the pile. Adding in different sized browns also helps as they create air pockets in the pile and soak up the excess moisture.  

Stagnant and doing absolutely nothing 

This is a sign of too much carbon and not enough nitrogen. Nitrogen feeds and helps reproduce more soil organisms. Without enough nitrogen, there won’t be enough organisms to break down the excess carbon.  

This can be remedied by adding more fresh greens, but they’ll need to be mixed deep into the pile. A compost turner can help do this. Fresh grass clippings or manure can add the needed nitrogen.  

Compost bin do’s and don’ts

Do add:

Greens:
Disease-free plant materials
Vegetable and fruit scraps
Coffee grounds
Seaweed
Pet hair
Horse, cow, sheep, rabbit, guinea pig or chicken manure
Grass clippings

Browns:
Cardboard and paper
Untreated sawdust or wood shavings
Straw and hay
Wood ash
Cotton rags
Home compostable packaging
Brown leaves

Don’t add:

Dog and cat waste
Plastic-coated paper or cardboard
Treated wood sawdust or shavings
Cooked food scraps
Meat or fish
Invasive weeds

Composting in-situ  

In situ means ‘on-site’ and it involves letting organic waste break down either directly on the soil surface or dug into pits and trenches. 

This method is very easy and fuss-free and, as the aim isn’t to create a working compost heap, there’s no emphasis on layers or the correct carbon and nitrogen amounts.  

Chop-and-drop composting 

Disease-free green waste such as the leaves and stems of spent plants can be chopped up and laid down right where they are. This is known as a chop-and-drop technique. They’ll provide a mulch and, once they break down, they’ll feed the soil life.  

Trench composting 

Trench composting – also known as pit composting – is a great way to dispose of organic material that you can’t put in your above-ground compost bin or on the soil surface. Cooked foods and fish scraps, for example, do well being dug into the ground. This is really an underground worm farm, so this type of compost relies on a lot of worm activity to break down and excrete the organic matter in the trench or pit.  

It does require digging, though, so I avoid doing this in my actual vegetable gardens. 
I do my trench composting around fruit trees or in places that I have yet to transform into no-dig patches.  

Simply dig a long trench or pit, at least 50–60 centimetres deep. Place your organic matter in it, then cover with soil and it’s done!  

If dogs and cats digging up the compost is an issue, lay a few rocks or untreated wood planks over the covered hole.  

This gorgeous and practical gardening book covers all the basics of establishing and planting a no-dig organic edible garden, with month-by-month gardening tasks and delicious seasonal recipes.  
Homegrown Happiness: A Kiwi guide to living off the suburban land, by Elien Lewis, photography and recipes by Elien Lewis, published by Bateman Books, $39.99, available now at all good bookshops and batemanbooks.co.nz.  

 

50 years of fertile ground

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From corn, compost and comfrey, to a brief encounter with synthetic fertiliser, Auckland couple Dave and Gillian Woods reflect on organic gardening and half a century of involvement with Soil & Health. Ken Downie tells the story in words and pictures.  

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Compostable packaging

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In 2018 (ONZ Jan/Feb) we featured a story about compostable packaging that stimulated plenty of lively debate. It was a fledgling industry in New Zealand back then, so what difference has three years made? We asked Niki Morrell to find out. 

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Your new look Organic NZ

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Organic NZ stands strong as an independent magazine devoted to organics and sustainable living.

Over the past 80 years we’ve led the way on information and advocacy to support the health of our soil, food and people. We think our core message is as relevant now as it was when we started 80 years ago. Healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people. Oranga nuku, oranga kai, oranga tangata.

Readers love our magazine and we’re delighted to share this gorgeous new look with you all. We’ve recently increased the size of the magazine, and now also offer online reader access for all subscribers. We’d love to hear your feedback, as always, and you can email us at info@organicnz.org.nz.

Saying thanks to the team behind Organic NZ

As we celebrate our 80th year with this brand new look we must say a big thank you to our editor, Philippa Jamieson, and also to the wider magazine team.

To Sally Travis, Maria Biggelaar, Peta Hudson and Meghan Read, thank you! And thanks to our many readers, writers, advertisers and other supporters.

Here’s to another 80 years!

Brand new online reader option

A new online readership subscription is now available. This allows you to read our features and other key stories here on the Organic NZ website. Online readership is also available, free of charge, to all print subscribers. Read more about our online readership option here: https://organicnz.org.nz/read-online/

We aim to deliver information and news the way you want it. With increasing numbers of people getting their news online, digital publishing makes sense. But don’t worry – our print magazine remains a central part of our work.

About the look

We’ve taken the best of our magazine and given it a fresh new look with extra room for photos, illustrations and white space. This gives you a more enjoyable reading experience. We’ve paired this redesign with some new fonts from Wellington font foundry Klim. We’re proud to support local New Zealand artists as part of our commitment to buy local.

The 80th Anniversary edition is also perfect-bound rather than stapled, which really comes into its own as we increase the size of the magazine further.

A special thanks to designer Sally Travis for crafting this beautiful new look for us.

Thanks also to GoodSense for their sage advice and support for our redesign. And finally a huge thanks goes to Dominique Schacherer and the team at Streamside Organics for allowing us to tell their story, and for providing our 80th Anniversary cover image.

On behalf of the publisher,
Pete Huggins
General Manager, The Soil & Health Association of New Zealand

Grassroots and global

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Being served cooked rat and unwittingly drinking rice alcohol spiked with dead eagle are just a couple of the things Chris and Jenny May experienced as they travelled the world, advising, supporting and building organic networks. 
Sue Gilmer finds out more about what these organic stalwarts have done over the last half century. 

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Learning by growing

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In the picturesque seaside town of Riverton, west of Invercargill, a school garden is proving to be a fertile ground for the cross-pollination of learning, as Hollie Guyton and Rebecca Perez show here in words and pictures. 

Photos: Hollie Guyton and Rebecca Perez 

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Hollie Guyton is the librarian at Aparima College and Rebecca Perez is the school’s vegetable gardener. Together Hollie and Rebecca founded Village Agrarians villageagrarians.org, whose mission is to support and grow the communities of organic growers and farmers, producers, food activists, community gardeners, eaters, and everyone working to grow local, ecological and equitable food systems. 

Whenua Warrior

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Moko Morris talks with Kelly Francis, a Kai Oranga graduate and the catalyst for over 250 food gardens that have been planted since last spring.

We hope you enjoy this free article from OrganicNZ. Join us for access to exclusive members-only content.

Motivated by attending a Kai Oranga course at Papatūānuku Marae, Kelly Francis (Ngāti Wharara, Ngāti Korokoro and Ngāpuhi) created a charitable trust and social enterprise movement called Whenua Warrior. Her vision is to have a harvestable garden available to every person in the country and her mission is to feed, teach and empower communities through māra kai (food gardens).

Providing solutions and connection

The idea came to Kelly from understanding communities that she had been in, the challenges they face and the solutions she had learnt to share. It solves multiple issues including knowledge- and time-poor whānau, provides financial stability through not having to purchase vegetables, and offers a connection to Papatūānuku (Mother Earth) and what she provides us with.

“The most important thing I learnt on the Kai Oranga course was Hua Parakore – the six principles of the Hua Parakore verification system,” says Kelly.

“It also came from knowing the mana you can get from providing kai to your whānau, the need to understand the whakapapa of your kai and the advantages of connecting your wairua with mahi māra kai. I wanted to find a way to help our communities with these indigenous techniques and tried to imagine the entire country understanding their food in this depth… and then find a way to give that koha to them.”

So Whenua Warrior was born.

Gardening is a whānau affair: Kelly, Tainui, Passion and Pania Newton at Ihumatao, Māngere

How it works

Involving others comes naturally for Kelly; they usually find her. It’s the story, passion or mahi behind each project that attracts people to her kaupapa. Finding people is very important to her – but whoever is there on the day are the people that were meant to be.

Her approach to gardening projects is to ensure that community and their needs are met first and foremost. What Whenua Warrior build and who they build it with needs to be sustainable and beneficial for years to come. Anyone can put a box of dirt in your backyard, but not everyone can teach how to get that box of dirt to benefit you, your family, hapū and iwi.

Once a māra kai is established, there must be buy-in from families so that there is a foundation of people that work together to ensure the benefits are felt wide and far. ‘Build day’ is about the community and its people, not the garden. Post-build is about supporting the people to support the garden.

There are two different arms to the Whenua Warrior approach:

  1. 100% community-based, with no money involved. The community identifies what they need and Whenua Warrior supports them to source seedlings, soil and materials, then helps to facilitate the build and works out ways it can be managed.
  2. 100% community-based, backed by funding. A call-out is made to the community as above, then funding is accessed if required.

This approach has been successful and over 250 māra kai have been built so far, in South Auckland, Mount Wellington and Whangarei. Whenua Warrior is now in its eleventh month, and has started on more of the larger-sized gardens rather than focus on the number. In September this year, 50 gardens will be built in the back of 50 homes in Kawakawa. The process from initial contact to actual build varies from place to place but is usually done in under six weeks.

Tainui with beetroot seedlings

Hua Parakore principles

Kelly explains the principles of Hua Parakore (clean, pure, kai atua) in the following way:

“When contemplating a project, I look at the dates of the maramataka (moon planting calendar) that I can plan on to benefit the build day, hui days, decision days. It is an important aspect in all parts of the project for the wellness of people and for the timeline structure for the project.

“I consider te ao tūroa [the natural world] when we are on the whenua and trying to discover what Papatuānuku already has and what can be built to benefit the tangata whenua. Knowing your surroundings and your options for build is something our tohunga would be responsible for before the land was confirmed to build māra on.

“At this stage whakapapa is considered as well. What happened here? How was this whenua used? What is the whakapapa of the area, people, whenua? Kōrero on the land will potentially allow us to discover the best possible places to plant A versus B.

“We then have the holistic connections that are in our principles: wairua, or spirit. I ask to make sure that I am allowed on the land to do the mahi – ask tangata whenua directly but also karakia to ask our tupuna to ensure our holistic safety. We connect everything physical to spiritual and must acknowledge everyone at every time.”

Wairua can also be a verb – ‘acting with wairua, doing with wairua’, says Kelly. “All actions taken in the build day must have everyone’s wairua in mind. I think that the wrong wairua can mean an empty plate. Everyone must be in tune with each other… and share the mauri.

“Mauri is what you are passing on from you to kai, and from kai back to you. This is most important when planting – and the atmosphere for planting needs to be completely serene and positive. What you plant is what you eat, and I consider it a hugely important part of build day to get the community mauri at its highest to allow the passing from them to their kai, and eventually from the kai to them.

“Mana – this is felt mainly when all of the above has been completed. The principle that can only be reported to yourself. Mana is not something you earn – it is something within you. Only you can choose how much mana you apply to each decision you make. It is your spiritual pat on the back – and I normally feel this when I am back home and contemplating the completion of each project.”

Whānau and kai more important than money

Passion receiving beetroot seedlings

Kelly says the most fun part is meeting the communities and teaching and learning at the same time together. She shares the matauranga (knowledge) in a way that benefits Papatuānuku, focusing on knowing that people are better off and proving her strong view that money shouldn’t be the main focus of life: family and kai is.

“I built this idea out of hope, because I truly care about what your kids will be able to access when they are responsible to provide food for their tables. We should be thinking of what we can do NOW to benefit them then,” says Kelly.

“I strongly encourage all families in New Zealand to plant fruit trees and vegetables in every household. There are no negatives to growing your own food.”

The 6 principles of
Hua Parakore

Whakapapa

Wairua

Mana

Maramataka

Mauri

Te Ao Tūroa

Kai Oranga

Find out more about free Kai Oranga courses here: www.wananga.ac.nz/programmes/school-of-iwi-development/kai-oranga

Whenua Warrior

facebook.com/whenuawarrior

Moko Morris is Co-chair of the Soil & Health National Council who lives in Ōtaki. She is also the national coordinator of Te Waka Kai Ora, the NZ Māori Organics Authority.