Hon Anne Tolley, MP for East Coast

Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards

The East Coast shone at the 2015 Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards held at Te Papa earlier this month. Gisborne Boys’ High School took out the Supreme Award, after winning the Excellence in Teaching and Learning award, recognising the school’s Turanga Tane Whakairo Programme.

Whakairo takes students through a carving programme that teaches them about Maori culture while they gain NCEA credits. Headed and created by Craig Callaghan, the programme has been extremely successful at increasing engagement, attendance, involvement in school activities and has raised NCEA pass rates to 95 per cent for Maori boys at the school.

While Craig and the boys involved in Whakairo were here in Wellington for the awards, I met them in my office at Parliament to congratulate them on their success. It was great to sit down and talk to them about such an innovative programme, I thoroughly enjoyed their visit.

This award is fantastic for the school and I am thrilled to see such innovation and success in our community.

I’d also like to congratulate Kaiti School and Te Kura Reo Rua o Waikirikiri, who were also finalists in the Excellence in Engaging category for their joint programme One Community, Two Schools, 300 Whanau.

Prime Minister on the East Coast

We were fortunate to have Prime Minister John Key visit the electorate on Thursday 25 June. It’s always a pleasure to show the Prime Minister some of the fantastic things we’re doing in the electorate.

We visited a number of schools, including Paengaroa School, Edgecumbe Primary School, Edgecome College and Awakeri School.

It was great to show the Prime Minister our schools and the children absolutely loved the visit – there was not a frown in sight!

We also stopped in to the innovative company Comvita who are exporting manuka honey products from Paengaroa to the world. It was fantastic to show regional New Zealand doing exciting things on the global stage.

Volunteer week

Last week was National Volunteer Week, which celebrates the valuable contribution our many volunteers make to the community. The theme for National Volunteer Week this year is ‘there is a place for you to volunteer’.

As the East Coast MP I routinely see locals finding their place to volunteer and I am immensely grateful for their contribution. Here in the East Coast, 20 per cent of locals give their time, skills, and resources to the causes that are important to them. That is outstanding!

This government understands the importance of volunteers. Volunteers are supported with $12.5 million through the Community Organisation Grants scheme, $1.5 million for community-led development, and with $502,000 through the Support for Volunteering Fund.

I would thoroughly encourage everyone to get involved in National Volunteer Week 2015. To find out how you can pitch in, contact your regional Volunteer Centre.

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