Benefits of Community Engagement
An integrated community engagement kaupapa serves to enhance the capacity and sustainability of all schools by enabling connections with inspiring relatable role models and regular contributions of time, talent and treasure from members of the school’s ngā tāura community.
Community Engagement Impact
Level the playing field of opportunity
Opportunity
We strive to level the playing field of youth opportunity in Aotearoa New Zealand by supporting kura in low-income communities to develop an enriching, sustainable community engagement kaupapa based on ngā tāura connection and contribution.
Connect with inspiring and relatable role models
Engagement
A kaupapa based on a school’s ngā tāura community, enables current students to connect with inspiring and relatable role models from their school’s community of former students. These enriching connections provide students with valuable exposure to aspiring possibilities, choices and opportunities.
‘If they can do it, so can I’
Inspiration
Former students have grown up in the same area and attended the same kura, so become instantly relatable to current students. They are living proof that ‘people like me’ can and do succeed and prosper.
Contributions of time, talent and treasure
Giving
Contributions of time, talent and treasure from members of the ngā tāura community of former students, whānau and the wider community enhance kura capacity,capability and sustainability.
Over time, as the tāwai of a ngā tāura engagement kaupapa are woven into the fabric of a kura, its social, cultural, spiritual and institutional well-being becomes future-proofed.
With the powerful realisation
"If they can do it, so can I"
possibility is ignited in young minds.
Community Engagement in Action
Blues at Māngere High School
Blues player and All Black, Ofa Tu’ungafasi, returns to his kura Māngere College, to gift several pairs of Blues rugby boots and to connect with current students and his former teachers.
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Papakura High School 50th Reunion of 1970 Moascar Cup team
Papakura High School celebrates the 50th Reunion of their inspiring 1970 Moascar Cup team.
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Career pathways – Tamatea High School
Career pathways opportunties showcased by a former student at Tamatea High School
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William Colenso Te Vaka Māia Fitness Group
Te Vaka Māia fitness group at William Colenso College led by former student police officers and fitness trainers
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Dionne Thomas and June Clark – Karamū High School
Principal and former Karamū student, Dionne Thomas, and long-serving staff member, June Clark add valuable passion and cultural knowledge as leaders of the community engagement kaupapa at Karamū High School in Hastings
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Empowering Connections
Young People
Young people’s lives become enriched by opportunities to engage with inspiring, relatable former students who went to the same school as them.
These empowering connections provide access to ambition and self-belief being ignited in young hearts and minds as students realise that “If they can do it, so can I!”.
Long Term, Sustainable Benefits
Schools
Any school serves as a hub in its wider community. School communities throughout Aotearoa New Zealand become enriched, strengthened and future-proofed spiritually, culturally, academically, socially and physically by the commitments and contributions made by members of their school’s community of former students.
The connections made ensure that the enrichment has long-term, sustainable benefits.
Sense of Pride and Accomplishment
Communities
Students, staff, parents and school supporters become collectively uplifted by a communal sense of pride and accomplishment that arises out of the enriching and empowering achievements, stories and contributions of time, talent and treasure from its ngā tāura community and beyond.
The Impact of Ngā Tāura Engagement
Surveys of Young People show:
84%said that connecting with former students helped them realise that they can be successful
79%said that they felt more confident about their future success
81%said that engaging with former students helped them to realise the link between their school work and future job options
91%of teachers believed that working with alumni boosted students’ confidence
*Future First UK Survey
ngā tāura - former student