Mentoring scheme helps to reunite struggling families

Student Reison Tunupopo (left) with mentor Lionel Teleaga. Photo / Dean Purcell

A 13-year-old Manurewa schoolboy is talking to his dad again thanks to an intensive new mentoring programme.

Reison Tunupopo was moved out of his father's house in late 2009 after he went to police about the way he was being treated at home.

He had been expelled from his primary school, and was on track to being expelled in his first term at Manurewa High School when he was referred to the Dream Youth Centre Extreme (DYCE) scheme last month.

The scheme was named last night, after a six-month survey of Auckland's needs called "MacroAuckland", as one of five inaugural projects for the new Auckland Communities Foundation, which links donors with needy community projects.

Its eight part-time youth workers work one-to-one with selected Manurewa High School students and their families. Their teachers provide daily reports on each student.

Reison said his initial mentor, Sema Ah You, helped him a lot before dying suddenly of a heart attack last week, aged 23.

"He was a good man," Reison said. "He told me to go to the class. He talked to me a lot about what I'm doing in class. He asked me for my daily report. He always used to shake my hand and always tell me to keep it up."

His new mentor, Lionel Teleaga, went to see Reison's family. The boy's father, and his sister who has looked after him since he left his father's house, came in for a family conference called to plan a way to avoid his expulsion.

"They said I've just got to work on keeping out of trouble," he said.

The process helped to reconnect him with his father: "We just kept on seeing each other."

Scheme manager To'a Teleaga said Reison's father had his own issues "with the recession and not having a job and stuff like that".

"When he heard that his son was doing really well, he just started crying," she said. "You can see a sense of healing."

She said students in the programme were often "struggling with issues at home getting in the way of being able to learn" - sometimes as simple as not being able to afford the school uniform.

"We hand-hold them to the point where they have enough confidence to keep going," she said. "It's counselling, conflict resolution, career advice and mentoring one-to-one about issues at home."

The school pays 30 per cent of the cost, another 30 per cent comes from the church-based Dream Centre Trust and 40 per cent comes from grants and donations.

Mrs Teleaga said other local schools wanted to replicate the scheme but the trust needed money to expand it. The Auckland Communities Foundation said $25,000 would provide one more youth mentor in a school and $200,000 would pay for a full team of eight.

The foundation also announced a new $75,000-a-year fund donated by Hynds Group founders John and Leonie Hynds to provide an annual tertiary scholarship for a student from Manurewa High School and a preschool project, also in Manurewa.

The foundation's other four inaugural projects are:

A social services hub for 200 people living at the Western Park caravan park in Ranui (needs $50,000 a year).

A young parents centre run by Te Waipuna Puawai at Glen Innes (needs $100,000).

A youth health one-stop-shop at Manurewa Marae (needs $795,000 over three years).

An integrated housing and learning centre for young people leaving care or youth justice homes, young parents and other youth at risk (needs $60,000 for feasibility study, plus $100,000 to develop the project).

AUCKLAND: A CITY OF PARADOXES

Auckland's overall crime rate is decreasing, yet Aucklanders feel less safe.

Boarding houses for "rough sleepers" have available beds, yet homeless Aucklanders are sleeping on the street.

Increasing numbers of Aucklanders are attending cultural events of other ethnic groups, yet only half of Aucklanders consider the city's increasing diversity a good thing.

Young people are more likely to take risks around water, yet almost half of those who drown in Auckland are over 45.

Children's health outcomes differ dramatically across Auckland, yet perceptions of health by parents across all three health boards are virtually the same.

Pacific Island students remain in school for longer than average, yet their tertiary enrolment rates are still low.

Most Aucklanders say they save energy all or most of the time, yet the city's energy consumption is increasing rapidly.

There are stereotypes about unemployed Aucklanders choosing to be beneficiaries, yet when a new supermarket opened in Manukau in 2010 more than 2500 people lined up for the 150 jobs.

Source: www.macroauckland.org.nz