Tackling child poverty

Words: Bess Manson Picture: Robert Kitchin

"I can tell you that the majority of families are doing the best they can for their children and even if they weren't, when is it the child's fault?"

evaluation with 80 low-decile schools she was surprised to learn that thousands of children were missing out on those basics.

‘‘I’d thought it’d be a few hundred going without but the response we got was amazing. There were thousands of children that were missing out on everyday things that we all need to get started in the morning.’’

Chapman was raised on Auckland’s North Shore and, in her teenage years, further west in Henderson.

Her father was in the demolition industry and her mother worked with him part-time.

It was a normal middle-class upbringing by parents who instilled in her a sense of empathy and a strong work ethic.

‘‘As a kid I was always a bit entrepreneurial. I was the kid going down the road picking agapanthus and trying to sell them to the neighbours. I had that spirit of wanting to get out there and make something out of nothing.’’

After finishing secondary school in Henderson her plan was to become a police officer, but her grades weren’t up to scratch so she took a job at an office supplies company.

She started out as the ‘fax girl’ but decided she liked the look of the marketing department so she took herself off to night school to get her marketing diploma.

Meanwhile, on the personal front, Chapman’s world had become mired in a destructive and violent relationship.

‘‘I was going out with a guy who basically beat the crap out of me on a regular basis.

‘‘At the time I didn’t understand the dynamics and psychology behind it and I ended up staying for 10 months.’’

If there’s a silver lining, she says, it was that it led her to work with Victim Support helping others in her situation.

‘‘I used my experience to do something practical.

‘‘I like to get shit done – that will be on my gravestone. I’ve always been like that. I’m always going to look for a solution to a problem.’’

She had moved on to work at Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust and later as marketing manager for Child Flight Air Ambulance.

But this knowledge about children missing out on school because they were lacking such basics as food, shoes and raincoats planted a seed in Chapman so she decided to do something practical.

She quit her job and while contracting for Victim Support, Neighbour Hood Support and The Warehouse she went about setting up KidsCan with a $40,000 grant from The Guardian Trust.

She’s had her battles. There were claims that a 2009 telethon that raised $2m delivered only 18 cents in the dollar to those in need hit hard. Chapman insisted an audit showed in fact 80 cents in the dollar reached their beneficiaries.

Criticisms of former staff in 2015 about champagne lunches and inappropriate use of funds were inaccurate, she says.

‘‘Never at any time has the money raised for KidsCan been spent unwisely.’’

She has learned to keep away from the caustic comments KidsCan gets from their naysayers.

‘‘You wouldn’t believe some of the things people have said to me,’’ she says.

‘‘After one negative story people actually wrote comments telling me I should kill myself. People messaged me on my Facebook saying ‘I hope you die’. It was horrific.’’

There’s a small group of people who spit and hiss at what they are doing and knock the parents of children in need, she says.

The social media landscape can be a revolting place to dwell.

‘‘I find it interesting that there are still so many judgmental people out there and I wonder, where is the compassion for these children? I can tell you that the majority of families are doing the best they can for their children and even if they weren’t, when is it the child’s fault?’’