As New Zealanders we like to believe our country is a great place for children. Poverty is a real and widespread issue within New Zealand. As many as 25 percent of New Zealand’s children – about 270,000 – currently live in poverty. That is one in every four children. That is enough children to fill Auckland’s Eden Park five times over.
Child poverty is extremely costly. For individual children, it can mean going to school hungry and living in a cold, damp house. Important childhood opportunities are missed like school outings and sports. This can influence educational achievement and health outcomes. In New Zealand each year there is at least $6 billion in additional health and education costs associated with child poverty, as well as reduced productivity.
Finding actions that will reduce child poverty is not simple. How can we make sure New Zealand is a great place to live for all our children? What is the role of education for solutions to child poverty? Some answers can be found in the report to the New Zealand Children’s Commissioner- Solutions to Child Poverty in New Zealand: Evidence for action. Hundreds of New Zealanders, including children, contributed to this report. Overall it was clear that action is needed, now. No child should experience severe and persistent poverty, least of all in our ‘land of plenty’.
Investing In Our Nation’s Kids is an evidence-informed project that aims to advance the immediate priorities put forward in the child poverty solutions report.
To read more about this visit HERE
The page shares a number of different projects that they have looked at concerning the issue of child poverty. This includes animated videos of potential solutions to areas which are symptomatic of poverty within New Zealand.