Mayor Wayne Brown outside the Auckland Town Hall meets Ports of Auckland workers.
Mayor Wayne Brown outside the Auckland Town Hall meets Ports of Auckland workers.
The chair of Auckland Council’s Planning, Environment & Parks Committee, Richard Hills, says it was only by strong councillor push-back that a community grants programme was saved.
The Ngā Hapori Momoho-Thriving Communities grant scheme, along with a regional arts and culture fund and various transport subsidies were on Mayor WayneBrown’s cull list last year, but it was eventually approved at a lower level of funding.
Hills’ committee has approved grants totalling $318,00 to 13 organisations - with about half the money directly benefiting Maori through activities like a spoken word poetry workshop for Maori, a community connection programme for older Aucklanders and a music wellness programme.
Auckland councillor Richard Hills.
“It’s not funding the whole event or whole programme but it’s us being able to use a little bit of ratepayer money to help get a project off the ground or help it get other funds so it’s a good way to make that dollar go further,” Hills told Waatea.News.Com.
“We know community organisations are the leaders in our communities getting things done so we like to support them rather than lead it ourselves.”
Other groups getting support are a treaty education programme and a community outreach programme working with rangatahi facing exclusion, isolation and adversity.
