Constable Mandeep Kaur is the new Ethnic Communities Relations Officer for the Waitemata District, covering Rodney and North Shore. Popularly known for being the first Indian female police officer to join New Zealand Police in 2004, she started her career in Henderson in 2004. She eventually moved to Counties Manukau. Now returning to Henderson seems like coming full circle for her.
Tell us about your role and its scope.
My role is Ethnic People's Relations Officer mainly focusing on ethnic issues internally (within the department) and externally (within the community). Often times we find that people relate better and more easily to an ethnic person and thus the need for such a role.
What experience and skills do you bring to the role?
I have been in the police for 12 years and have held various roles such as being in the front line, traffic policing, Family Violence, NPT, Community Policing, which is an awesome opportunity to get to know and work together with the communities we live in. I have also worked as an Intelligence officer and Ethnic Co-ordinator.
Besides my experience in the police, I also bring life experience to the role, being a mother of two grown up children who have attended universities and are pretty much on their own. I am an immigrant who has experienced firsthand the struggles of a new settler. This, I believe, in conjunction with the above policing experience gives me the experience and skills as a police officer and more importantly as a human being to understand and relate to the issues, which sometimes are unique to ethnic people.
How does it benefit the Indian community?
Although each NZP officer respects diversity and will do anything to understand the cultural aspects and underlying issues to certain problems, I feel my unique skill of being able to read and write two other languages—Hindi and Punjabi—in addition to English, puts me at an advantage. It also becomes fairly simple for members of the community to have their issues and concerns dealt with.
In my role, I would also like to educate my peers about certain cultural protocols, which again will help the wider ethnic communities.
What can people expect?
A gold class tireless friendly service (laughs). On a serious note, I would like to be accessible to members of the community so that they feel safe and find it easy to bring their concerns and issues to me and it will be my endeavour to resolve these to the best of my ability.
Often, Indians and other ethnic communities are quite fearful and hesitant to bring any matters to the police, and I would like to encourage them to overcome this and bring any issues to us.
What are the circumstances under which people can contact you?
People can contact me for anything and everything they wish to seek advice on. I will point them in the right direction if I cannot directly help. However, I do want to reiterate, please remember to call 111 if it is a matter of emergency.
What is the best way to contact you?
I can be contacted directly on 09-8390783 or 0211921525 or you could write to me at mandeep.kaur@police.govt.nz
What is your message to the people?
You and I together can make a difference. We can make this planet a better place to live for us and our future generations.
Don't hesitate to ring me or say hi if you see me walking on the street.