ProCare Foundation marks million dollar donation milestone

In its fifth year, the ProCare Charitable Foundation (the ProCare Foundation) has reached a milestone of donating more than one million dollars to charities in Tāmaki Makaurau, with the confirmation just under $280,000 has been approved to support nine charities in the 2019 ProCare Foundation grant round.

The aim of the ProCare Foundation is to support registered charities that deliver programmes that work to reduce health inequities and tackle the symptoms of poverty in greater Auckland region.

ProCare Foundation Chair June McCabe says it has been very rewarding to support some of the front line services who are all helping to improve the health and well being of people living in Tāmaki Makaurau. “The reality of our time is that there is an ever-increasing number of vulnerable people who need more help with their health and wellbeing needs.  Some people struggle because of poverty and living conditions and others live difficult lives because of specific health conditions.

“Over the past five years we have been privileged to support more than 31 organisations who, mostly on very limited budgets, work with their communities and whānau to deliver targeted programmes to help people in need.

“We have been very proud to help these charities make positive differences to those they support,” says Ms McCabe.

Fifty one registered charities applied for the 2019 funding round, with every application highlighting a genuine need for more resource to support the activity carried out to help vulnerable people all over Auckland.

This year’s successful applications include Family Success Matters, The National Foundation for Deaf & Hard of Hearing, YMCA North, Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation Charitable Trust, Action Education Incorporated, National Heart Foundation of NZ, Asthma NZ, NZ AIDS Foundation and Dance Therapy NZ.

With cardiovascular disease a major cause of premature death in New Zealand, specifically for Māori and Pacific people, support for the Heart Foundation’s new ‘heart health mobile van’ will help to improve access to screening and heart health education.

The specially designed and fit for purpose heart health mobile van will service the greater Auckland region, and will go to marae, sports clubs and shopping centres along with GP practices, parks and other facilities. The van aims to meet people in their own communities to carry out heart health checks including blood pressure and diabetes screens.  It will also provide information and resources on healthy lifestyle, food and nutrition and the type of support that enables, empowers and ultimately save lives by taking the Heart Foundation to people who might not otherwise engage with the service.

The lives of over 600 babies and young children in the Counties Manukau area will be greatly improved this coming year thanks to Family Success Matters being awarded a grant from the ProCare Foundation to support their ‘Fathers for Families’ programme.  Fathers for Families will assist up to 200 fathers from ‘at risk’ families providing strategies and tools to control anger, educate how violence, drugs and alcohol affect children, and practical help with setting values and goals.    

“We want to give fathers the knowledge and skills they need to parent well.  We also try to help them get rid of negative beliefs about themselves so that they can become good role models and greatly increase safety for their children”, says David Ringrose, Family Success Matters.

Recipients of the 2019 ProCare Foundation funding are:

National Foundation for deaf and hard of hearing

Project Title: Make Listening Safe awareness programme and 300 hearing screening checks

Funding will support delivery of the World Health Organisation’s Global “Make Listening Safe” programme, which focuses on noise-induced youth hearing loss awareness and prevention. It will cover three secondary schools located within the Auckland region. Funding will also cover hearing screen checks for 300, Year 9 students. 

YMCA North

Project Title: South-Auckland Intermediate Sports Camps – promoting active communities

Funding will establish Intermediate sport camps at YMCA Camp Adair in 2020 for selected South-Auckland Schools. At each of the three one-week-long camps 320 students from eight intermediate schools will encourage healthy lifestyle choices and provide sporting opportunities for young people in South-Auckland.

Auckland sexual abuse help foundation charitable trust

Project Title: "Dear Em' sexual abuse prevention programme for girls in schools

Funding will provide an extension of 'Dear Em' sexual abuse prevention programme in via 40 sessions in intermediate and senior schools in Auckland. Key to the sessions is to empower girls to say 'no', how to manage 'peer pressure around sexual abuse', coping strategies, empowering and enabling young girls to support each other with positive sexual health behaviour and where to go if they need help.

Action Education Incorporated

Project Title: Reducing isolation and supporting mental well-being of Auckland youth

Funding will support delivery of a range of positive youth development programmes in schools, marae, kura, care and protection and youth justice facilities in the Auckland region. Programmes offer safe spaces for young people to explore who they are in the context of their peers and empower them to break down stereotypes.

Asthma New Zealand Inc

Project Title: Breathe easy tamariki and youth asthma education to schools

Funding will support mobile Asthma nurse educators to deliver the free education and support to school students and staff, ensuring that they are well equip to recognise symptoms of asthma, manage students identified with asthma and respond confidently in an asthma emergency. NZ has the second highest rate of asthma mortality for 5 - 35 yr. Educating and supporting our young people to understand, respect and self-manage their lung health is paramount in decreasing this.

New Zealand AIDS Foundation

Project Title: HIV home test smart vending machine

ProCare Foundation will fund two smart vending machines that will dispense HIV Self-Tests (HST) to Kiwis at high-risk of acquiring HIV. A key part of NZAF's strategy is increasing access to and frequency of HIV testing which is essential to ensure people are diagnosed early, provided with timely treatment, and linked into ongoing care. The machines will be located in venues in Auckland, frequented by gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM), and will feature a touch display that will guide the user through a basic questionnaire and dispense a HST for free. Contact details will be captured so that people can be linked into care and offered support when required. Support services will be available by phone, email and face-to-face via NZAF peer testers and counsellors. Vending Machines have proven to be an effective way to encourage HIV testing within at-risk populations overseas and the aim of this project is to determine their effectiveness here. This project will trial and evaluate the success of three machines over 12 months.

Dance Therapy NZ

Project Title: Dance movement and arts therapy for 50+ vulnerable children

Funding will support 36 arts therapy sessions for at-risk children and 64 session for children with special needs and disabilities from April 2020 to April 2021: ‘STARS’ (dance movement therapy) and ‘Arts 4 Us Specialty’ (arts therapy and the already-established ‘Arts 4 Us South’ arts therapy programmes improve the health and well-being of at risk and vulnerable children living in South Auckland.  

National Heart Foundation

Project Title:  Heart health van to improve heart-health outcomes for greater Auckland

Funding will support a specially designed and fit for purpose heart health mobile van to service greater Auckland. The van will go to maraes, sports clubs and shopping centres, GP practices, parks and other facilities to meet people in the community and do heart health checks including blood pressure and diabetes screens.  It will also provide information and resources on healthy lifestyle, food and nutrition and the type of support that enables, empowers and ultimately save lives by taking the Heart Foundation to people who might not otherwise engage with the service.

Family Success Matters

Project Title: Programme for fathers of at risk children under six years

Funding will assist with the delivery of the Fathers for Families Programme to 200 fathers in Counties Manukau, a programme created to improve the health and safety of over 600 ‘at high risk’ children pre-birth to six years of age.

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About the ProCare Foundation

The ProCare Foundation was established by the shareholders of ProCare who gifted over 90% of their shares to the Foundation in 2013. The purpose of the Foundation is to help promote the health and wellbeing of disadvantaged communities, deliver health-related activities that improve a community’s wellbeing, or reduce health inequalities and alleviate poverty and deprivation in the Auckland region. For more information about the Foundation and previous grant recipients, click here