Teen parents and new dads benefit from funding

Grants for asthma leaflets, pilates mats for pregnant students and a laptop for Samoan wardens are among the $7355 given out by the Manurewa Community Board last month.

The biggest grant in the final funding round for 2009-10 is $2069 for the Auckland Asthma Society to help produce 64,000 educational pamphlets in different languages.

Fundraising manager Linda Thompson says they've had to take on a fifth asthma educator for Auckland because referrals to their free service have doubled in the past year.

Asthma kills more than 100 people every year.

The biggest problems encountered by asthma educators are "complacency and non-compliance" over taking the right medication, she says.

"We address this through education in homes and leave brochures for them to refer to afterwards."

Seminars on the importance of fathers have won a grant of $1100 for the Father and Child Trust. Auckland co-ordinator Brendan Smith says they run three different seminars focusing on teen fathering, new fathers and the importance of fathers for babies up to the age of two.

"Many broken communities and families have lost the support of fathers in the immediate family and in order to revive them, fathers have to be valued."

The trust takes the seminars to teen parent units, early childhood centres, maternity wards and anywhere they can reach mums and dads.

Another $1000 goes to the New Foundations Trust for field trips and teaching resources for at-risk youth being mentored at three Manurewa high schools.

Trustee Sue Dickens says the 12-week programme is specifically designed for year 9 and 10 students who're considered by their schools to be "at risk of becoming disengaged".

"The aim is to enable them to find out a bit more who they are, build self-esteem and identify abilities and have vision for their future."

The Faith City Ministries Trust Board gets $810 to help develop young leaders from Manurewa, Otara and Papatoetoe. Spokesman Essendon Tuitupou says the 17 young men on the course will be trained to set up and run their own community projects.

Grants of $500 each go to Clayton Park School for its year 7 and 8 school camp at Tongariro National Park and to James Cook High School's taonga teen parent unit for pilates mats and DVDs for the pregnant students.

The Manukau branch of the National Council of Women gets $416 to help send representatives to the bi-annual national conference in Rotorua in late September.

The Aukilani Samoan Wardens Charitable Trust gets $400 to help buy a laptop for the service which provides 27 volunteer wardens to patrol Otara, Manurewa and Papatoetoe.

The board has also given $230 to the Renew Christian Community Trust for three parenting seminars and $330 to the Lifeboyz Trust for a school holiday programme for children with physical and emotional disabilities.

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