Community Support & Social Inclusion
Investing in areas that support the community
Our support in the community
The Ted Manson Foundation supports both local grassroots community groups and larger national organizations which includes longer term initiatives. These include:
The Ted Manson Foundation is actively investing in areas that support the community, provide for enhanced social inclusion and participation and initiatives that ensure equal access to opportunity.
The Foundation provides financial assistance to programmes and initiatives which enables and strengthens communities with the resources, skills, and knowledge to meaningfully participate and thrive in society.
Those within the lower socio-economic communities also face more challenges in respect of participation in club sports both financial and logistical.
The sports clubs within these areas, once the community heart, also face challenges in staying operational and relevant in serving these communities.
A healthy sports club environment is a positive place for children to spend time, under the supervision of adults there is less opportunity for boredom offending.
At the TMF we have piloted various programs to encourage greater involvement in sport and recreation including providing sports wear, equiptment and making the community vans available free of charge to community sports clubs.
Sports Programme Funding
Waitakere Rugby Club in TMF jerseys.
Teds Beds & Blankets (Teds B&B)
The Ted Manson Foundation are trialling a new grant programme which will be run and administered by Kootuitui Trust.
To be eligible students must attend one of the primary or intermediate schools within Kootuituis Papakura cluster.
A fund has been set up to provide material essential goods to meet the everyday needs of students and their families. Students can be referred to Kootuitui by school principals, social workers, public health nurses, police, emergency housing, refuge, and other community workers. Many of these families will already be known to Kootuitui.
Such items include beds, blankets, duvet inners and covers, sleeping bags, infant sleep sacks, pillows, warm pyjamas, robes, socks, beanies, jumpers, track pants, hoodies, school uniforms, curtains, basic appliances and so on.
Some of the areas we support
Support services or programmes to the benefit of the community
Equal access to community activities
Community pride/community mahi
Meaningful participation
Improved equity and wellbeing as Māori and as Pacific peoples
John Walker Find your Field of Dreams
The John Walker Find your Field of Dreams Foundation identified that access to swimming instruction was not uniform across Auckland South. Since the transfer of operational budgets directly to school boards and the introduction of stricter requirements for school pool testing and operations, many schools have exited from their own pools and swimming programmes. There has not been a school built with a pool since 1976.
Even though school groups are offered free access to pools, especially for low socio-economic schools, the cost of arranging transport to a public pool is a significant barrier. In addition, instructor costs to support teachers who are not confident in teaching swimming also added barriers.
The Community Swim programme was developed and launched by the John Walker Foundation in 2008 to address these issues by providing FREE water skills for life lessons. This includes pool entry, transportation to and from the school and instructors at no charge to teach school children the basic yet essential skills of swimming and to be safe in and around water.
The Ted Manson Foundation was pleased to offer a donation and two 30- seater buses to the John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams Foundation to grow their current swim and sports programmes.
The provision of these vans to the John Walker Foundation will ensure a greater number of children from South Auckland are able to access the community swim programme and after school activities. We look forward to continuing this partnership in the years ahead.
