Business New Zealand, a business lobby group, is supporting a series of discussions that aim to ensure that child poverty in New Zealand is given due consideration. Working with the Every Child Counts campaign (a group of NGO’s including Plunket, Save the Children and Barnados), Business New Zealand’s Phil O’Reilly says that “Businesses first and foremost Read more
The United Nations Children’s Fund says nutrition for children affected by the Fiji floods is a major concern. “It felt really heart wrenching to see families, and especially young children in the evacuation centers with nothing but the clothes on their back. Some lost everything while others saved what they could. It was really sad Read more
Last week TV3 broadcast a documentary on child poverty highlighting the issue of child poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand. Child Matters supports Bryan Bruce’s call in his documentary – for legislation to put our children first; for a strong focus on the needs of children, not the status of parents; and for this to happen across all political parties. Read more
More than 100 New Zealand children who died last year would probably have survived had they lived in Japan, Sweden or the Czech Republic, a new documentary shows. In Inside Child Poverty: A Special Report, set to air this week, Wellington documentary maker Bryan Bruce shows a Swedish doctor footage of sick, scab-ridden schoolchildren suffering Read more
The Child Poverty Action Group report’s main recommendation – “that Working for Families tax credits should be made available to beneficiary families as well – is opposed by Labour and National alike,” writes Gordon Campbell. One in five New Zealand children live in poverty, with subsequent effects on their health, educational achievement, and productivity – to Read more
A generation of kids have grown up with increasing income inequality and high levels of poverty. “The violence, poor health and lack of educational success of our poorest kids is a direct consequence”, said Ruby Duncan, President of the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services (NZCCSS). “Our members do not want to be constantly Read more
New Zealand ranked 28th out of 30 countries using Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data on international performance across 20 different aspects of children’s lives. New Zealand has one of the lowest rates of spending on children in the OECD, at $3 billion dollars annually. This information is contained in a report, “1000 days Read more
The Salvation Army’s Consumer Price Survey of food prices at a South Auckland supermarket released on Wednesday showed increases for the year to June 2011 of 9.1 per cent for a single-parent family with two children and 8.2 per cent for a two-parent family with three children. This contrasts markedly with Statistics New Zealand’s all Read more
St Patricks College pupil, Kieran Meredith says it is making a difference that drives him. He is one of fifty young people seleced to take part in New Zealand’s first UNICEF Youth Congress. Kieran is in year 12 at St Patrick’s College Kilbirnie. Earlier this year he started a programme to lift the achievement of Maori and Pacific Island Read more
The United Nations Children’s Fund is concerned about poor people living in urban areas in Pacific region as global food prices rise. Since 2009 UNICEF has worked with six Pacific Island countries to establish early warning monitoring to track the impact of economic crises on the most vulnerable and to provide real-time pulse data”. It found Read more