Kids’ charity needs 377 sponsors
A Christchurch father forced to put his wife into fulltime care, while managing his own chronic bowel disease, says a child sponsorship programme has lifted the family’s financial burden.
Dave* spent years struggling to care for his seriously ill wife, parent their children, and cope with his own Crohn’s disease.
About eight years ago, his partner was struck by an incurable genetic degenerative disease and within a year she lost the ability to walk and drive.
Dave’s children are now among 4753 sponsored through charity Variety New Zealand.
At present, 377 children are in need of a sponsor.
In each year since the programme began in 2013, the charity has had 300-500 children on its waiting list.
Dave said he was reluctant to apply because he was trying to manage on his own. ‘‘But it got to the point where it was like: you know what, it would be nice to have a bit of extra help.’’
He made the painful decision to put his wife into fulltime care in October 2017. ‘‘It got too much and we had to put her into fulltime care because I had to look after the kids as well.’’
Last year he was hospitalised and nearly died from blood poisoning as a result of Crohn’s.
The family lives in a Housing NZ home and rely on Dave’s benefit.
After bills are paid, he is left with about $150 for food, clothing and any extra expenses.
The children dress in secondhand clothes and do not go on holidays or to the movies.
A staff member at the children’s school suggested Dave apply for a sponsorship.
‘‘[It’s] the looks on the kids’ faces when we take them shopping for new clothes ... when they can go in there and choose stuff.’’
Variety NZ provides about $500 per child each year for school-related costs or basic items from The Warehouse such as clothing, stationery and bedding.
Prior to their illnesses, Dave said the family was ‘‘quite well off’’ and gave money to those in need.
‘‘It is just an amazing thing to give to because you don’t realise there are families that have kids that are going through hard stuff and it is just nice to be able to see their faces light up, so I am extremely happy that this is something my kids get to be a part of.’’
Sponsoring an individual child was appealing to those who wanted to do something ‘‘tangible’’ in response to child poverty statistics, he said.
KidsCan, which supports children in low-decile schools by providing food and other basic needs, had also seen continued high demand for its support, chief executive and founder Julie Chapman said.
In the past five years the number of schools supported has almost doubled, from 388 to 740.
Last year it began supporting
25 early childhood education (ECE) centres. There are
47 schools and 119 ECE centres on a waiting list.
Chapman said measures that would reduce poverty included more affordable housing and higher wages and benefits.
Increasing incomes without addressing the rising costs of housing, electricity and petrol would not benefit children materially.
This year the Government passed its Child Poverty Reduction Bill, which required it to measure child poverty, develop reduction targets and a strategy to achieve their goals. In August Prime Minister and Child Poverty Reduction Minister Jacinda
Ardern launched the Child and Youth Wellbeing strategy, which will be implemented over the next five years.
The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is calling on the Government for an emergency families package, including an extension of the winter energy payment and the Family Tax credit to those on benefits, before Christmas. Spokeswoman Susan St John said for 174,000 families in severe financial hardship – earning 40 per cent of the median income after housing costs – the Government’s package was ‘‘no where near enough for that worst off group’’.
* Name changed to protect privacy