Whānau Manaaki’s Amanda Coulston was among around 30 presenters at a conference, Poverty by Design hosted by Victoria University’s Stout Research Centre last weekend. 

Mandy spoke about Whānau Manaaki’s many initiatives to support families and communities including offering social services, Covid support and transport to homebased early education, kindergarten and school.

Other speakers discussed how we could work to eliminate poverty, as well as explaining the cost of poverty to the economy, in terms of lifelong health problems and lost productivity, as the effects of poverty in earl life are long-lasting. Speakers also emphasised that it is humanity, not the economy that makes ending poverty essential.

Some Whānau Manaaki office staff also attended the conference.

The Herald’s Simon Wilson was at the conference and wrote this summary

The conference was also reported in the news site,Newsroom: