Social Action By Toni Ransom

Not every child starts on an equal footing. For the one in four New Zealand children living in poverty, the school day may mean staying at home on a wet day or turning up cold and wet from the winter rain.

When a child grows up in poverty they miss out on things most New Zealanders take for granted. They are living in cold, damp, over-crowded houses, they do not have warm or rain proof clothing, their shoes are worn, and many days they go hungry.

Many more don’t get to go to the doctor when they are sick, because they cant afford the costs of the appointment and the medicine. Others stay home from school because they don’t have all the uniform or lunch to take

Poverty can also cause lasting damage. It can mean doing badly in school, not getting a good job, having poor health and falling into a life of crime.

Child poverty in New Zealand

The global poverty action group is an organisation across the whole world. Last year with nearly 20,000 people across the world, they helped Live Below the Line raise nearly $4M for anti poverty right across the world, ending extreme poverty, by making people healthier, more educated and more.

In 2013 they raised $425,952

The Global Poverty Action Groupwww.livebelowtheline.com/nz

Child poverty Action Group (CPAG) is an independent charity working to eliminate child poverty in New Zealand through research, education and advocacy.

In a country like New Zealand, with ample resources, child poverty could be eliminated completely.

Every agrees children need the right conditions to grow into healthy adults. The Child Poverty Action Group was formed in 1994 out of a deep concern

for the rising level of poverty in New Zealand and its effects on children. CPAG has over 2,500 members and supporters across NZ including doctors, teachers, health workers, community workers and many other people concerned about the poorest children in New Zealand society

The guiding CPAG is the right of every child to security, food shelter, education and healthcare.

Things they do: - promote better policies for children and young people- Promote awareness of the causes and consequences of child poverty.

Child Poverty Action Groupwww.cpag.org.nz

Every child counts was established 2004 and driven by the core agencies of Barnardos, Plunket, UNICEF, Save the children, and the Institute of Public Policy at AUT.

Their vision is: A nation that values children and ensures that every child is secure, healthy and happy.

Their mission is: Advocating for the policies, practices and attitudes that enable children to thrive.

Their purpose of supporting Every Child Counts is:To contribute to the welfare of the children and young people of Aotearoa/ New Zealand by raising public awareness and promoting policies that:1. Place children at the centre of policy and planning2. Ensure every child gets a good start in life3. End child poverty4. Reduce child abuse5. Increase the status of children and the child rearing role of families.

Every Child Countswww.everychildcounts.org.nz

At Kidscan, they feel it is a great injustice that one of four New Zealand children live in poverty, going without the basics most of us take for granted for.

Their mission is to meet the physical and nutritional needs of Kiwi kids less fortunate than others so they can be more engaged in their education and have a better chance of reaching their potential in life.

The charity was founded in 2005, and today supports the education of thousands of disadvantaged New Zealand children a day, in 388 low decile schools nationwide.

Kidscanwww.kidscan.org.nz

The Annual Child Poverty Monitor is a partnership project between the Children’s Commissioner, the JR McKenzie Trust and Otago University.

In 2012 the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty put forward 78 recommendations on a range of ways to address child poverty.

One of those recommendations was around the need to measure and report on child poverty rates annually. They believe this is a vital step in reducing child poverty in New Zealand and that is why this project was born.

Every year the Child Poverty Monitor records how well or badly we’re doing for kiwi kids. They use data from Otago University to show how many children are in different types of poverty.

Child poverty monitorwww.childpoverty.co.nz

I think KidsCan is a good choose because they support child poverty in many different aspects and they set up lots of programs to get supporters involved in help prevent child poverty in New Zealand

My choice

Six keys of Development

Getting people involved in Events that Kidscan may run.

Maybe get people involved in Fundraising to help.

Possibly supporting a child for a certain amount of money each month.

Participation

At KidsCan they do many “People- centred things that help children with everyday basic needs and how to provide them. Here are some of the “programmes that they do to help children:

‘Food for Kids’: The ‘Food for Kids’ programme currently provides nutritious and targeted food at school for over thousands of financially disadvantaged children a day. As of today KidsCan is feeding 10,585 children across New Zealand and unfortunately some are accessing the food up to 5 times a week.

‘Shoes for Kids’: KidsCan provides free quality footwear and socks for children who come to school in winter without footwear or with shoes that are in bad condition. Before the programme was introduced many of the schools we now support reported that they had to cellotape or staple kids’ shoes together as they were often falling apart. So far more than 40,000 pairs of shoes and 80,000 pairs of socks have been given to children throughout New Zealand.

‘Raincoats for Kids’: For families struggling to make ends meet providing a raincoat for each of their children is seen as a luxury item. KidsCan found through its evaluation of schools that thousands of children were going without this basic item to keep them warm and dry on their way to school in winter. Children without coats are often kept home from school when it rains. Those who do go to school, turn up wet and freezing cold which makes it very difficult to focus and participate in class. Our partner schools tell us children without coats get sick more often which increases absenteeism.

‘Warm and Cold Kids’; Being cold brings real misery for children living in poverty and makes it difficult for them to stay healthy. If they get sick and are also poorly nourished, they really battle to recover. The result is that they miss out on school and lose ground, making it more difficult for them catch up to their peers. Keeping children in school is one of the core purposes of the KidsCan Charitable Trust.

These are all ‘people centred’ things, as they focus on the kids in need and not the things around them, making them live in poverty.

People- centred

I couldn’t really find anything that KidsCan did that involved the environment.

It was more involved around people and their issues.

Sustainable

For the one in four New Zealand children living in poverty , the school day may mean staying at home on a wet day or turning up cold and wet from the winter rain.

At KidsCan they address these issues by setting up programmes to help to kids in need. For example: For the issue above, KidsCan has set up a ‘Raincoats for Kids’ which allows children living in poverty to access raincoats and/or warm clothing to.

Another example that KidsCan addresses deep causes of poverty, is their ‘Mission and Vision’ set up. KidsCan’s mission is to meet the physical and nutritional needs of Kiwi kids less fortunate than others so they can be more engaged in their education and have a better chance of reaching their potential in life.

The way they can help that is, get supporters to spread the word about children poverty in New Zealand. Another way they could help is to get children to school on time, dressed probably and get teachers to see that the children DO need help, and get them to help the kids get more engaged in the learning.

Structural

One way that people can do this is to Apply for Support to become a Kidscan partner school. This enables the particular school to help those identified kids in their school that need further help.

Possibly becoming a Corporate Partner by supporting the work of Kidscan to get children the chance of better education.

Empowering

I don’t really understand this one, but what I think is:

There was continuous media reports about NZ Children going without basics like food and education because of parents that are unemployed. This lead to the Kidscan Charitable Trust being created. They wanted to find out how bad this situation was (or is) and to do something about it.

Holistic

I believe child poverty in New Zealand should be prevented as it is increasing children's chances of living a good life. In New Zealand, I believe we could all make a difference by donating a little money or even support a child need. If we all that I believe New Zealand could a better place for kids to live and grow up in

Thanks for watching!!