Te Aro School is about as vibrant and bustling a learning environment as any kid could hope for. Hidden away at the south end of The Terrace, Te Aro is overseen by its remarkable principal, Sue Clement, and teaches children from over forty nationalities and cultural backgrounds. Te Aro is one of six Wellington schools engaged in the Garden to Table program.
Mt Roskill school Wesley Primary lays the foundations for healthier kids as they kick off their Garden to Table programme. Wesley teacher Ana Tonga and principal Brenda Martin share the vision of what this will mean for their school.
From the mean streets up north to a tightrope of homelessness, mental health and substance abuse issues, Tim bravely shares his journey with DCM Wellington back into housing and health.
Peter Burke breaks the chains of addiction and homelessness to live a life helping others.
Oliver Vetter knows his trash. Seriously. He’s seen it all and isn’t afraid to tell you the hard truths. The Wellington programme manager for our partner charity Sustainable Coastlines sits down to separate fact from fallacy and let us know what we really need to do keep our coastlines clean and beautiful.
Aye Htoo lives in Kalay, Myanmar. She first took out a loan through ZMF, ADC Microfinance’s partner microfinance institution, five years ago. Since 2014, Aye has had a total of 6 loans and is proud as punch that she has never missed a payment!
Amanda Burgess didn’t know what to expect when she went into labour three months early. With the help of Wellington’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and our partner charity The Neonatal Trust, Amanda and her partner Michael made it through to the other side with a beautiful baby and smiles on their faces. Here is their story.
What is speech language therapy and how does it help children with Down syndrome? We chatted to speech language therapist Shannon Hennig about the importance of communication, the lack of funding for those who need it and the relief provided by our partner charity, UpsideDowns.
Maurethe Little sought Bellyful’s help twice when struggling with her two young sons and chronic ill health. Two years later she’s blooming, and is putting her own time and effort back into the organisation that supported her.
With the help of our partner charity DCM, Arthur has his own home, a new set of teeth, is on a path to employment, and is able to hear so much better. DCM is dedicated to supporting people like Arthur, people who are experiencing homelessness, into sustainable housing. Here’s his story.
Future Leaders is an initiative of our partner charity Inspiring Stories, with a vision to see every New Zealander unleash their potential to change the world. The Future Leaders programme started with a simple question: how might we make a bigger difference for young people in rural and provincial New Zealand?
For Vicki, spending three months in Wellington Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was the last thing she expected. We talked to her about the birth of her son Jack, the very real ups and downs of her time in the NICU and how our partner charity The Neonatal Trust helped get her to the other side.
We are super excited to announce that our Collective 1%’s have now raised over one million dollars for our partner charities! We asked our friend and Collective supporter, Barnaby Weir, to help us share the good news.
Te Aro School is about as vibrant and bustling a learning environment as any kid could hope for. Hidden away at the south end of The Terrace, Te Aro is overseen by its remarkable principal, Sue Clement, and teaches children from over forty nationalities and cultural backgrounds. Te Aro is one of six Wellington schools engaged in the Garden to Table program.
If the walls of the Orongomai Marae could talk, there’s a good chance they would never stop. For over forty years, Orongomai has been at the centre of Upper Hutt, providing support, community and an incredible number of social services to people throughout the region. Our partner charity Kaibosh, provides food for one of these social services.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Lani Evans was New Zealand’s own Superwoman. She heads the Vodafone New Zealand Foundation, co-chairs Thankyou Charitable Trust, chairs Thankyou Payroll and is on the committee for the JR McKenzie Trust’s Peter McKenzie Project. Not to mention being involved in the first all-female traverse of the South Island, proposing to her partner at the end of the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker and fighting the crime of wastefulness through dumpster diving – plus being an amazing 1% donor and Future 50 member. Phew!
Inspired by the possibility of making someone’s life better gets Motif’s Director and One Percent’s Chair, James Bushell, out of bed each day.
A fan of millenials and their conscientious decision-making (go millenials!) and a member of the crew that sailed a vaka unassisted to Bougainville and back searching for sustainable cocoa beans for Wellington Chocolate Factory, James is pretty proud he hasn’t scared his family and friends away, yet.
Julian Moller is a self-proclaimed nerd and known here at One Percent as ‘The Wizard’. From Opoho, Dunedin, Julian grew up exploring the ’burbs with his brothers, building huts in the bush and playing touch down at the local park. Nowadays, he works his magic as a programmer and developer at 1000minds, dabbles in a bit of craft beer brewing with his mates (they’ve called themselves 1000Brews – shout out to the Occasional Brewer) and is our much-valued volunteer tech support wiz.
To be human is to be on a journey – in Samoan, faigamalaga. A journey to discover your own kaupapa, and to find ways to live it out. At DCM, we talk about picking up the paddle – ki te hoe. For me, that’s a journey to becoming and to being my best self. We call the people we work with taumai, meaning ‘to settle’. You could say that to be human is to be on a journey to a place where you are settled, where your wairua (in Samoan, agaga) is settled.
What is happiness? A perfect sunset? A mansion on the hill? A dog walking on its hind legs? It’s the question that lingers in our minds when we consider which job to take, what to have for lunch and the sort of person we should spend the rest of our lives with. But do any of us have the answer? Sigmund Freud was not convinced and insisted that ‘the pursuit of happiness is a doomed quest.’ Fortunately, it seems that few of us agree.
