PUBLICATIONS
Great Potentials Annual Report 2008
Great Potentials Annual Report 2008 includes inspiring stories of parents taking responsibility for their children’s future and of young people and families embracing opportunities to flourish. We hope you will enjoy learning more about our most recent activities and our challenges and achievements. Read our Annual Report 2008 here
November 2008 Newsletter
Click here to read our November 2008 newsletter.
NEWS & EVENTS
Principals endorse HIPPY
HIPPY Onehunga children celebrate their 2009 graduation with local MP, Sam Lotu-Iiga
“HIPPY is fulfilling a real need in our community … forming a sound foundation in these early years, enabling the school to be able to lift children’s achievement and set them up for a successful future.” (Mavis Moodie, Principal, Onehunga Primary School) … read more
“The parents and children that we are inheriting from HIPPY are quite outstanding.” (Tina Voordouw, Principal, Rongomai Primary School, Otara) … read more
“This is a well needed programme for low socio communities where it is educating parents to care for their child’s future.” (Laura Halliday, Acting Principal, Murupara School) … read more
Our CEO – Dame Lesley Max
Great Potentials’ CEO and founder has been made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to children.
View Dame Lesley Max on TVNZ News at 8 here.
Read the New Zealand Herald article here.
Twins don’t do things by halves
Citizen and Wellington Tamatimu are among the first in their family to graduate from university and, while they were studious at school, it was the MATES programme that helped propel them towards university. Read the New Zealand Herald article here.
The Auntsfield 4 Legged Race
On Saturday, 28th March 2009 the generous Clevedon community rallied together to create an action-packed day and successful fundraising event benefiting Great Potentials Foundation.
The inaugural Auntsfield 4 Legged Race was a unique multi-sport event involving relay teams of four people. Each team member completed one leg of the race of either a 20 km kayak, a 25 km Mountain Bike Ride, a 15km Horse Race or a 15 km Run over the beautiful hills, river and farm land of Clevedon.
The Founder of HIPPY Has Passed Away
Professor Avima Lombard (1926 – 2008)
Professor Avima Lombard, the Founder of HIPPY, has passed away in Jerusalem (October 2008). Professor Lombard made an annual trip to New Zealand between 1992 and 2000 to help establish HIPPY in this country.
During those years Professor Lombard and Great Potentials’ CEO and Founding HIPPY Director, Lesley Max, spent two weeks every February travelling the country visiting HIPPY sites and speaking to decision-makers about the necessity to expand the home-based programme which supports parents in preparing their children for success in school.
ARTICLES
Oxford Is An Elite University, Not An Elitist One
Daily Telegraph, May 2008
Are the right students going to university? Read the article by Dr John Hood, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, here.
Kerre Woodham Celebrates MATES
Herald on Sunday, 10 February 2008
It’s not often a decile one boys’ school is in the headlines for the right reasons….
Read Kerre Woodham’s column here
School Zoning and the Illusion of “Parental Choice”
Ann Dunphy, September 2006
The recent public dispute between Auckland Grammar School and the Ministry of Education, over the former’s judgment in excluding students no longer living in the AGS zone, illustrates not only the policy changes of “Tomorrow’s Schools”- which devolved many important decisions to BOTs, while retaining ultimate power with central government, but also deep and eternal issues of supply and demand, represented by the everlasting zoning debate…
Potential’s Great Liberator
Carroll du Chateau, NZ Herald, September 2006
You could be forgiven for thinking that Lesley Max is an over-privileged do-gooder. She stands there, in Jenny Gibbs’ art gallery of a house, glinting with marquisite earrings plus her late mother’s diamond engagement ring… It’s when she starts explaining why she is changing the name of her Pacific Foundation to Great Potentials, and the latest moves in her struggle to help at-risk children, that the real Max emerges. She stands on Gibbs’ imposing open staircase and delivers a speech so compelling that people break in every few minutes with “bravo” and congratulations…read the full article
Our Shame
North and South Magazine, May 2006
Great Potentials Foundation CEO Lesley Max was featured in a North & South magazine cover story highlighting New Zealand’s epidemic of child abuse. Lesley is one of New Zealand’s leading children’s advocates. The article highlights some of the solutions Great Potentials provides in addressing this tragic problem. Read the full article HERE
VIDEOS & DVDs
WHAT'S NEW
Dame Lesley on Q+A’s panel
CEO of Great Potentials, Dame Lesley Max, joined Paul Holmes and the Q+A’s panel on Sunday, 15th August 2010. Watch the full programme here from TVNZ On Demand.
One-stop shop to help families struggling to raise themselves up
Photo / Dean Purcell
Crystal Woollen, found her life changed forever after she became involved at the whanau centre in Papakura. Read the New Zealand Herald article by Simon Collins here