The "MATES Programme" run by Great Potentials was one of the 12 days of Christmas grant recipients from Auckland Airport. Photo / Greg Bowker
The "MATES Programme" run by Great Potentials was one of the 12 days of Christmas grant recipients from Auckland Airport. Photo / Greg Bowker
The Herald is profiling 12 charities awarded $10,000 each from Auckland Airport’s Twelve Days of Christmas community giving tradition. Each grant is thanks to generous travellers who placed unwanted currency into moneyboxes dotted around the terminals in 2024.
There are times in life when you just can’t dowithout your mates.
South Auckland-based charity Great Potentials Foundation is harnessing the strength of the friendship and connection with its mentoring programme that links tertiary student mentors with high-schoolers navigating their last year of school.
The “MATES” programme (Mentoring and Tutoring Education Scheme) has 80 mentors helping 509 year 13 students in nine schools across South Auckland. The students are often identified by their teachers as being disengaged or at risk of not realising their personal and academic potential.
The mentors help through one-to-one tutoring, group workshops focused on helping young students with academic study and assignments, numeracy and literacy, guidance on future pathways as well as building resilience and confidence levels.
The "MATES Programme" run by Great Potentials was one of the 12 days of Christmas grant recipients from Auckland Airport, they are planning to use the $10,000 to continue providing reliable transportation for mentors traveling to South Auckland schools. Photo / Greg Bowker
“The mentors generally provide the listening ear that young people need,” says MATES programme manager Teri Fong Murray.
“MATES has been very successful at raising the level of aspiration and NCEA achievement for high school students among schools in low socioeconomic areas, where the majority of the student population comes from low-income families,” Fong Murray says.
“We are working with students at the pivotal transitional year where they are going on to further study or employment and we want them to have the most options available when they finish school. Tutors also help them work on things such as money management, building a CV, and university scholarship applications – so there’s a big focus on life after school,” she says.
“Communities in South Auckland are so strong, but we find our students don’t really see themselves in a position where they can go to uni and get their degree and their masters. Our main driver is to provide the most support we can in terms of motivation and providing them options to make informed decisions.”
MATES also operates a MATES Junior programme, providing mentors to students at Year 8 to help with the critical transition to secondary school and to strive for better levels in literacy and maths as well as self-confidence.
Great Potentials hires up to 100 MATES tutors, who are paid for their time, and helps arrange transportation from their universities to the schools for mentoring sessions, with transport costs amounting to around $30,000 per year.
“This is an essential and significant expense, ensuring our mentors can reach the schools and deliver their vital sessions that help young people navigate educational and life challenges,” Fong Murray says.
For this reason, Great Potentials is delighted to be a recipient of Auckland Airport’s community giving programme “The Twelve Days of Christmas’”, which will go towards funding mentors’ travel costs to South Auckland schools.
A grant of $10,000 has been made available from donations to the airport’s globe moneyboxes dotted around the airport for travellers to deposit loose change or unused foreign currency.
Auckland Airport’s chief corporate services officer Melanie Dooney says the airport is delighted to help support the MATES mentors to make a positive difference.
“The airport is committed to being a good neighbour to the vibrant South Auckland community we’re proud to be a part of and this is one way we can contribute,” Dooney says.
“MATES is creating opportunities for students and helping them understand they are more than capable of achieving the goals they set for themselves.”
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