I Have A Dream Charitable Trust

Dear GlobalGiving Supporter,

Poor concentration – poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life.

I recently came across an article from Princeton University on how poverty reduces brain power and the ability to navigate other areas in life. The article explains how poverty and all its associated concerns requires so much mental energy, that those who are impacted by financial hardship have less brain power to cope with many basic areas of their life. As a result they are more likely to make mistakes or decisions that can further perpetuate their financial woes. This is all blindingly obvious, once you think about it, but it is something which is usually overlooked by talk-back radio hosts, other media commentators, many politicians, and the designers and administrators of Government service delivery.

This quote from one of the paper's authors sums it up:  "Previous views of poverty have blamed poverty on personal failings, or an environment that is not conducive to success.  We're arguing that the lack of financial resources itself can lead to impaired cognitive function.  The very condition of not having enough can actually be a cause of poverty."

The fallout from the Covid years has started to shine a light on the hardship that more segments of society are now facing, however it is important to remember that many were already struggling to make ends meet long before Covid was even part of our vocabulary. As a result, their resilience to be able deal with the simple everyday tasks like staying focused in school will be harder than ever. The mahi (work) our team are doing to support these vulnerable tamariki (children), is therefore more important than ever. You can read the full Princeton University article here.   

Thank you,

Scott Gilmour

Chairperson, Board of Trustees
I Have A Dream Charitable Trust

Visitor Open Days 

If you've not yet had the chance to attend one of our Visitor Open Days, then maybe 2023 is the year. 

We're often asked what it is that our Navigators do on a day to day basis and frankly there is no better way to explain this than by being in the environment itself. Many of the visitors who come along to these special days are often blown away by the experience and often remark that while they had some understanding of the work we're doing with our programme, seeing it in practice was a whole other thing.

Our Visitor Open Days are held once a term at one of our four Kura (schools) partners. We have visitors join us from all across the country and it is nice easy round trip from Auckland. Here are some comments from our last Visitor Open Day held in October.  

• "What an incredible experience the VOD was!  Thank you for the invitation."
• "Thank you so much for inviting us to witness the mahi of your team. It was particularly joyous to see the interactions between rangatahi Dreamers and their Navigators."
• "The day was amazing and I have since lifted my monthly donation. I particularly enjoyed the 1-1 time with the Dreamers and their Navigators."
• "We thoroughly enjoyed the day and found it very insightful and inspiring."

Our next Visitor Open Day will be on the 17th March 2023. If you are interested in attending this or another Visitor Open Day in 2023, or if you know someone else that might be interested in I Have a Dream, please contact our Fundraising Manager Jodie Hannam or Chair Scott Gilmour. 

The Power of an Idea 

Never under estimate the power of listening to the ideas of our tamariki, whether they are big or small. One of our Year 5 Dreamers Wiremu, had a very simple idea which has turned into something very beautiful for the whole community as shown in a recent Sport Northland article. Whilst playing a game of tag on the playground, Wiremu posed a great question. "Mama, what if we invited our friends to come to the playground at the same time as us, and we could all play together? We could start a playground club!"

With the support of his whanau (family) and I Have a Dream Navigator, Jessie Hedges, Wiremu's enthusiastic idea turned into his (and I Have a Dreams') very own Playground Club with friends from his community and it continued to grow as weeks went by. Not only was this a great opportunity to connect with others, it is also an opportunity to explore their local neighbourhood with the group moving to different playgrounds week by week. One of the parents commented "Quite often we come here and noone else is here, so it's much more fun when they can play with others."

What a fantastic idea Wiremu!  You can read the full Sport Northland article here.  

Connecting through Sport

In Term 3 and 4 Navigator Dwayne saw the fruition of a Year 6 Inter-Kura sports event which saw students from 4 primary kura come together and participate in a number of sports together. These were 3 IHAD kura plus another local kura Whau Valley. The basis for this event was to increase contact between the 4 primary kura and to create whanaungatanga (connection) between the students of these kura, many of which will come together next year as they enter Intermediate.

The event saw the likes of Hannah from Northland Rugby being involved in assisting the Term 3 games of Rippa Rugby, and Sport Northland Energisers Paora and Sam joining in Term 4 for Basketball and Ki-O-Rahi. Students were given the opportunity to Mihi Whakatau (welcome ceremony) for both Tangata Whenua (locals) and Manuhiri (visitors) which created a wonderful space for leadership and to represent themselves and their kura. Students from each kura were mixed into four brand new teams made up of a mix of students from each kura. This played a huge part in the whanaungatanga between the students. The attitude and sportsmanship shown by each and every student was absolutely amazing with interactions between students filled with positive communication.

Dwayne will be heading into Intermediate next year as he follows his Year 6 cohort into Year 7 so will be unable to have such a part to play in the organization next year but through the contact that has taken place he has seen the start of communications between kura begin for an event to take place in Term 1 2023.

A Thank You to our Volunteers & Mentors

On Monday 5th December we had a celebration to acknowledge and thank all of our I Have a Dream Volunteers, Mentors and Interns. 

It was a wonderful night with about 100 people in attendance including our I Have a Dream staff team, Dreamers and whanau, tumuaki (school principals) and our Mentors, Volunteers and Interns.

"It was a fantastic night where we celebrated and thanked all of our Mentors and Volunteers that play a vital role in I Have a Dream. Without all of them we could not do what we do. The night was filled with celebration, korero (conversation), speeches and laughter and it was a real joy to have everyone together in the same room, especially after the last few tough years", says Kirsty Pillay-Hansen, Volunteering and Mentoring Manager.

Delicious kai was served and our Dreamers held leadership roles in welcoming guests, serving drinks and kai and giving out thank you gifts to everyone. "It was a wonderful chance for our Dreamers to shine", says Kirsty.

We would especially like to thank our speakers who contributed to the night and spoke about their experience with I Have a Dream. Heidi and J'oe spoke about their mentoring journey.  Krystal spoke about her experience as an After School Programme Volunteer. Leba spoke about her experience as a parent of a Dreamer. Whaea Ness spoke about her experience as a tumuaki. Thank you to these speakers who gave our guests a personal insight into I Have a Dream and shared wonderful stories, laughter and inspiration.

Congratulations to Volunteer Jonah Shortland

We would like to congratulate Jonah Shortland who was recently awarded an Oranga Tamariki Prime Minister's Award. Jonah popped in and talked to Kirsty about her experience and showed her photos of her recent trip to Wellington to receive the award, meet the Prime Minister, visit Parliament and attend the awards celebration. 

"We were delighted to be asked to endorse Jonah's nomination and write a letter of submission to support her. Jonah has been an exceptional student volunteer and has contributed hugely to I Have a Dream. We are excited to see the next steps of her journey and her own dream," says Kirsty.

Volunteering & Mentoring in 2023

Our Volunteers and Mentors continue to tautoko and support Dreamers and programmes through the summer and into 2023 and we are so grateful for all the enthusiasm and commitment that they continue to give.

We have a number of Volunteers signed up to support and help out on our summer holiday programmes from mid to late January. For many of our Dreamers, the summer holidays are a long period away from the support, consistency and resources of I Have a Dream and so these holiday programmes are very important.

We have around 25 new student volunteers raring to go in 2023 and will start our year off with induction, training and matching for them. We are grateful to the local high schools that we are able to work with to provide these opportunities for high school students to support our Dreamers.

We have a large number of new Mentors recruited for our 2023 cohort - ready for Mentor training and the start of mentoring group activities. We will also run regular mentor meetings and mentoring activities for our matched mentoring pairs, starting with a fun beach activity day in February.

Market Fundraising

Our year 12 Dreamers have set out to fundraise $30,000 to fund their overseas trip to Rarotonga in 2023. They brainstormed and came up with the idea of a fundraiser at our local markets to sell their handmade earrings and baking to help raise funds as a group for their trip.

Our Dreamers accepted the challenge and began planning. Together our dreamers planned and executed 2 days and nights making and selling their earrings and baking to their local community. Our Dreamers came together and showed teamwork, whanaungatanga and tumanako (experiences) through the whole process.

Their determination and excitement for this trip is what drives them to get out of their comfort zones and learn what it takes to achieve goals. Overall the fundraiser was a success, raising around $1500 profit learning new life skills and increasing their community engagement. 

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

#IHaveaDreamNZ  #InspiringDreamsEnablingFutures

Kia ora Scott 

What is our secret sauce? 

We've all been reading about the increasing mental health challenges for Kiwis, especially young people.  When you add in worsening education, housing, general health and other indicators of well-being, it's clear that NZ faces a crisis.

Most people accept that intergenerational poverty and widening inequality are root causes. What can be done?

The first thing to accept is that these overlapping crises have been building for a long time … ever since the radical economic and social transformations of the early '80s, in fact.  The second thing to accept is that a "solution" will also take time to take root.  This presents a huge difficulty, due to the public clamouring for politicians to "do something."

So, over the past 40 years — as our social and educational indicators have progressively worsened — non-profits and Governments (of every stripe) have implemented thousands of programmes, evaluative studies, research reports, committees of inquiry, etc. 

Why have they not worked?

This attached paper highlights that even initially successful programmes lack a key ingredient.  It suggests that developmental relationships — characterized by attachment, reciprocity, progressive complexity, and balance of power — are the secret sauce to any change in social, economic & community outcomes.

These academic papers can be a bit abstruse at times, and long-winded,  but this one does an admirable job — within 10 pages! — of describing this active ingredient. 

In a nutshell, this describes the role of our Navigators.  They form long-term and trust-based relationships with every young person in the programme, and also with every family.  The programme supports students within our partner Kura for the 15 years of their educational journey, and it succeeds because of these developmental relationships.  We're not parents and we're not teachers, so we have a unique opportunity to build emotional attachment, deliver opportunities for enriching personal growth, and gradually shift the balance of power from the Navigator to the young person.

Twenty years of the I Have a Dream programme in NZ, which builds on 40+ years of success in the US, show that investing in a child through the entirety of their childhood is a proven way to break the cycle.

Nga mihi,

Scott Gilmour

Chairperson, Board of Trustees
I Have A Dream Charitable Trust

Dreamers fundraise for a life changing "Dream" travel experience to Rarotonga

A group of our year 12 Dreamers are on a mission to fundraise for a life-changing end-of school overseas trip to Rarotonga once they successfully pass NCEA and complete Year 13 in late 2023.

IHAD Navigator and trip organiser, Daisy Rogers says, "The main objective of this trip is to utilise the life changing experience to teach our Dreamers to learn how to set a goal, plan a trip, fundraise, work as a team and to be accountable for the results. They will experience the hard work required to make a dream like this become a reality. This trip will also encourage Dreamers to finish school, attain NCEA, have 80%+ attendance, commit to fundraising, gain employment or tertiary education and achieve personal goals"

This trip will take many of our Dreamers far out of their comfort zone but the sense of achievement and benefits they will receive could possibly change their lives forever.

Read full story here

Poor Knights Island Visit 

On the 13th May, three Dreamers and caregivers were given the opportunity to visit Northland's world renowned Poor Knights Islands, thanks to Samara Nicholas from Experiencing Marine Reserves (EMR). The trip was sponsored by Dive! Tutukaka and the Bobby Stafford-Bush Foundation.  

Piripi Burt, our Te Kura o Otangarei school-based navigator was fortunate enough to share in this experience with his Dreamers: 

"EMR and Dive! Tutukaka provided an opportunity for 3 deserving Dreamers to meet other young people from around New Zealand that are also interested in the environment. It was incredibly heartwarming to meet other parents and adults that support young people in their endeavours. I was most proud when our Dreamers were asked if they wanted to do interviews. They felt comfortable and confident enough to share what they had learned from theirwhanau and the experiences they have had recently, even though they were a little nervous. One of our Dreamers proudly answered his questions in maori and completed his interview with this Whakatauaki (Proverb)"        

"Toitu te marae a Tangaroa, Toitu te marae a Tane, Kia ora ai i te Iwi"

Protect and strengthen the realms of the sea, Protect and strengthen the realms of the forest then the people will thrive.

The day is best summed up in this youtube video compilation supplied by EMR below. We are extremely grateful for such an amazing opportunity to be gifted to our dreamers.

Celebrating our Volunteers

In the last few weeks we have celebrated NZ Student Volunteer Week and National Volunteer Week. We have a number of adult and student volunteers & mentors who volunteer at our After School Programmes.

We recently held several mentoring and volunteering sessions, including a lunch with our wonderful student volunteers from Pompallier College. Sadly only half the group were present due to sickness but we still took the opportunity to thank them, take a yummy lunch and hand out certificates and volunteer badges.

"Our After School Programme (ASP) Volunteers play such an important role in making sure our ASP's are a success. They get alongside, support and have fun with the Dreamers, help run games and activities and support our Navigators. It would be very tough for us to run our ASP's for our Dreamers without these volunteers. We are hugely grateful for their time, commitment and energy" says Kirsty Pillay-Hansen, Volunteering and Mentoring Manager.

I Have a Dream Mentoring

On 4th July we had a wonderful mentoring evening that brought together some of our existing Mentors with our new 2022 cohort to discuss the mentoring programme and share insight into great mentoring skills.

This year's mentors will be working with years 7 & 8 students from Tikipunga High School and Te Kura o Otangarei. We will start in August with group mentoring sessions that will run monthly for about six months and then we will make one-on-one mentoring partnerships in the New Year.

"Having this combination of group based mentoring followed by one-on-one mentoring is important because it takes time to get to know each other, build the relationship and establish trust" says Volunteering and Mentoring Manager, Kirsty Pillay-Hansen.

We were grateful to existing Mentors Siobhan Patia, Heidi Erceg, Jacki Byrd, Tim Baker and Carol Martin who came along to share their experience with our newly trained Mentors. These Mentors joined our Navigators in sharing top tips and what makes a great Mentor. 

Visit by Black Ferns

On 15th June our Dreamers at Tikipunga High School had the privilege of meeting and hearing inspirational stories from 10 Black Fern NZ Women's Rugby players along with Black Ferns Coaches Wayne Smith and Wes Clarke. 

"It all started when Black Fern Renee Wickliffe contacted us with an interest in volunteering", says I Have a Dream Volunteering and Mentoring Manager Kirsty Pillay-Hansen. "Renee told me she wanted to give back and support a local community organisation on her day off from training and preparation before their recent game against the USA. Throughout the morning before the afternoon Renee was due to visit us, we received updates that more and more of the team were wanting to join her. Next thing we knew we had 12 of the Black Ferns rocking up to visit our I Have a Dream After School Programme!"

Read full story here