Christmas is just around the corner and some children are saying they don’t want presents - they just want food to eat.
That’s according to Variety chief executive Susan Glasgow.
The children’s charity helps children in hardship by providing items such as mobility and medical devices, healthcare, glasses, car seats, beds and bedding.
Variety also has a Kiwi Kid Sponsorship whereby New Zealanders provide $50 a month to support a child in material hardship to help provide essentials. Currently, there are 7300 children sponsored.
Te Ao Māori News spoke to Kataraina Ashby (Ngāpuhi) who lives in Manurewa with her four children, three of whom have recently become sponsees.
Hardship statistics
One in eight children in Aotearoa live in material hardship. One in every 4.5 Māori children, one in 3.5 Pacific children, and one in 10 European children experience hardship.
Children living in poverty in New Zealand have a 40 per cent higher risk during childhood, according to Professor Nevil Pierse of Otago University.
StatsNZ released figures last December showing material hardship had increased. Glasgow joined Variety in 2020 when there were 300 children on the sponsorship waitlist. She said there were now 3000.
Glasgow said Variety received 10 applications from families every day and it had increased in the past 12 months.
Necessities unaffordable
“I’m trying so hard not to let my children fall through the cracks, and trying to keep them afloat, trying to keep them on the path, and right now they’re doing great,” Ashby said.
Ashby said when she started with Variety four years ago, “back then I was just a mum trying to help my kids grow to be the best versions of them”.
Ashby’s children were heavily involved in sports and all she wanted for them was to achieve the dreams they were working so hard towards but technically it was difficult because of financial struggles to even afford necessities.
When she joined Variety, each of her children was given $200 to spend on clothing, which was a relief because she didn’t have to pay that money back, saying how unaffordable even necessities were, such as a pack of underwear being $25.
She said beds, another necessity people took for granted, were also unaffordable, and said three of her kids were in need and were given beds through Variety.
Ashby said she didn’t think the government had made it any easier for families like her own, because if it wasn’t kai, it was rent and she said she didn’t like to put blame on anybody else.
“I feel to a degree the government has placed us in different categories - the rich, the middle class, and then you’ve got, I’ll put myself there, the lower class,” she said.
“We don’t all have to be in flash jobs,” she said. She just wanted to be there for her kids so they could thrive.
“My obligations are my children, they come first, they are my number ones.”
Financial struggles impacting mental health
“Last year was probably the hardest of them all but my kids were doing good things so, without them even knowing it, it was them keeping me afloat,” Ashby said.
“The whole time the world was probably looking at me like, it was me keeping them afloat but it was the other way around.”
Last year she said she had a bad case of mental health struggle, which also impacted her physical wellbeing.
“Kids saw their mum crying a lot,” she said, “I had to give myself time to just be okay for the next day.”
She said her mental health went downhill and she wasn’t in a good place. It was difficult because her children started to want things that were beyond their expenses, and outside of sport.
“A lot of people would look at me and think I’m great, I’m doing awesome, I only allow them to see what I want them to see, which is all the smiles,” Ashby said.
“When they see me, which is most likely at a sports field or at a netball court, they only know what they see, they don’t really know what’s going on.”
Demonisation and blame
Glasgow said people who were struggling with poverty were often blamed and demonised and faced with false perceptions.
She said many people were in poverty, including parents who were working, which was one of the misperceptions.
“I’ve got kids choosing which meals to miss every week because their parents can’t stretch their food budgets,” she said.
“Parents who are cutting their hair to save money on shampoo, taking fabric out of inorganic rubbish collections to use as nappies.”
She said the struggles families are facing are real and some parents were only able to afford to prioritise rent and electricity and they couldn’t afford to pay for other things children needed to live a great life.
“Being able to access the fundamental things that make life worth living - being able to play sports with your friends, having a bicycle, all of the things that lots of families just take for granted,” she said.
If you would like to sponsor a Kiwi kid, you can do so here and, if your children are in need, you can find information on accessing assistance on their website.
