Child Poverty

Recently a local Whangarei Child Poverty Action Group was formed. This group has members from the community as well as local organizations concerned with the health and wellbeing of children and families/whanau. This group is planning a number of actions including :

working with our local and regional councils to support policies that would address child poverty issues;
working with the Northland DHB to provide us with information of the health of our community, particularly our children, and to provide annual updates so we can see what progress is being made;
working with the media to raise awareness of the issue and generate discussion amongst the general public;
advocating to our local politicians to prioritise policy interventions to end child poverty.
Working with local communities to support community action to address child poverty.

Some of the information provided by the Child Poverty Action Group during a recent Whangarei meeting:

In 1987/88 16% of dependent children were under the poverty line. In 2000/01 29% of dependent children were under the poverty line. In this same period 6% of elderly were under the povery line – clearly the burden of poverty lies with children.
In 2001 66% of children in sole parent households lived in poverty, the poverty line being defined as those living on less than 60% of their disposal income once housing costs were taken out. For example a family of four would need $17,000 after and tax and housing for them to be above the poverty line. Some families paying $260 - $300 a week for rent would need at least $30,000 to be above the poverty line. For some communities in Whangarei the median household income is under $20,000. We cannot deny that child poverty is an issue for our community.
Why does poverty matter? The impact of this poverty is both on children’s health now, and on their personal development through life. Children from poor families are three times as likely to fall sick and are more likely to be admitted to hospital than children from high income families. Findings from a University of Otago Study of 1000 children born in 1972-1973 showed that children who grew up in low socioeconomic status families had poorer cardiovascular health, poor dental health and more substance abuse as adults, regardless of adult socioeconomic conditions.
Directly acting now to tackle the appalling reality of New Zealand’s child poverty is possible – and would make a real difference to the type of country we are building for the future.

Whangarei Child Poverty Action Group is supported by the Child Poverty Action Group based in Auckland. For further information go to www.cpag.org.nz/

The Whangarei Child Poverty Action group is supporting the Every Child Counts initiative led by Barnardos. This campaign acknowledges that children are invisible within the political system due to their inability to vote. By joining your name to this campaign we can send a clear signal to political parties that the voting public want them to put children first – to remind them that children do count! The campaign has identified four issues that are vital for a positive social and economic future:

Put children at the centre of government planning
Give children a good start
Reduce child abuse and neglect
End child poverty.

To register for the Every Child Counts initiative or for further information go to the website www.everychildcounts.org.nz .

A local community forum will be held in early August with speakers from the local community and Every Child Counts. For more information contact Ngaire on 09 438 1015.