ASB Community Trust backs Pacific Mentoring Initiative

A five year commitment by ASB Community Trust into West Auckland-based Tuilaepa Youth Mentoring Service (TYMS) will help improve outcomes for youth in the area.

TYMS has grown rapidly over the last five years from six to 135 young people, in response to the growing need  for support for young people who are disengaged or at risk of being disengaged from education, employment and training.

"This is a fantastic project that the ASB community Trust is pleased to support. Their focus on academic mentoring and pastoral support is a great foundation to addressing issues in the area," Trust Chief Executive Jennifer Gill says. 

Programmes offered by Tuilaepa include mentoring with young people expelled from school and educational and life skills support for young fathers.  The aim is improved numeracy, literacy, and cultural connection.

Founder and Operations Manager Robson Tavita says TYMS’ work with both community and government agencies aims to develop a strong Pacific model of practice which can be shared with other organisations and agencies in New Zealand. 

“We know that as the number of Pacific and Māori youth who are not in any educational programmes, employment or training increase each year, we hope that our TYMS academic mentoring programmes would be pioneers to help address this and provide a real difference in Pacific and Māori education,” Tavita says.

“I am passionate about supporting the young Pacific people we work with and their journeys in life and seeing the changes in the young person and how they embrace their second chance at education, it’s what drives me.”

The TYMS collaborative approach ensures that the young person has full access to support from the programme, their families and school.

Funding for Tuilaepa Mentoring Trustcomes from ASB Community Trust's Catalysts for Change programme which provides multi-year funding to support new approaches to solve complex social issues.  Catalysts for Change partners are also provided with organisational support through the Trust's Centre for Social Impact.

The ASB Community Trust will invest around $350,000 a year to support the programme and its objectives.