Kootuitui ki Papakura Trust

Here are most of the members of the Kootuitui ki Papakura Trust at one of their recent meetings. They are community representatives working together for positive change in the lives of families and young people in Papakura. As the name suggests, the programme interweaves education, health and homes, to build social infrastructure and deliver life outcomes for children in the low decile schools of the area. The trust sits at the nexus of a number of collaborative endeavours:
- the collaboration among six schools with the implementation of digital pedagogies;
- the collaboration with health providers;
- the collaboration with local government, local community organisations, businesses and support agencies;
- the collaboration with corporate sponsors and philanthropic trusts.
Through the formation of the Trust, the framework has been established to provide leadership for the community from within the community. Finding local solutions from within is a partnership model in which all participants are invested in the outcomes and therefore have a huge stake in ensuring these are positive and significant. It gives agency to this community to determine and take their own actions without having to continually be on the receiving end of assistance from outside. Which even if it is well-intentioned, it does not take account of the Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".