Fund help for Matapuna

Calais Greening-Kaiwai (left) and Karlena Page are both students at Matapuna Training Centre. An endowment fund set up with Sunrise Foundation will ensure the centre can continue supporting its students in a needs-based, flexible way. Picture by Markus Brunner

Matapuna Trust’s special interest fund set up this year with the Sunrise Foundation is expected to benefit their students for years to come.

The fund is the 50th to be seeded with Sunrise.

The education centre’s trust board could see that establishing a fund with Sunrise would help secure its long-term future.

Matapuna Training Centre chief executive Jodie Cook says the trust relies on annual charitable funds to operate but is restricted, at times, by government contracts and associated funding rules.

“Students’ needs don’t always align with government funding criteria, so receiving an annual grant from our Sunrise fund will allow us to provide support for at-risk youth and adults in a needs-based, flexible way.

“Our board will have discretion over where the funds will have the biggest impact and be most beneficial for our students,” said Ms Cook.

Matapuna provides a wrap-around, holistic support system through their alternative education and youth guarantee programmes for 12-24-year-olds. By removing or minimising barriers to learning, it aims for students to become engaged in education and achieve their NCEA levels 1 and 2.

“Rangatahi voice and needs guide us as we believe this empowers youth to realise their potential, achieve their goals and have positive outcomes for themselves, their whānau and our community.”

Matapuna also provides a range of community-based programmes for at-risk youth and adults such as driver licensing, mentors, social workers, counsellors, offending prevention and supported transitions into further study or employment.

Sunrise Foundation executive officer Glenda Stokes said Matapuna did a “fabulous job” of nurturing and guiding the educational needs of their students, many of whom have struggled in traditional education.

“As its fund with Sunrise grows, so too will the support they can offer students in future generations.”

Sunrise invests all donations to the Matapuna Training Centre Endowment Fund in perpetuity (forever), with some of the investment income retained to ensure any gift will grow with inflation.

The balance of the income from investments will be granted back to Matapuna, every year.