What A Year!

We all share the experience of how very testing the year 2020 has been.

At Second Nature Charitable Trust, we have adapted to do things differently and more efficiently during the lockdowns of the past year, and have discovered a new level of creativity, kindness, and resilience. We have never lost sight of our commitment to enhance the lives of our youth in South Auckland.

Arts organisations such as the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Atamira Dance Company, Pacifica Arts Centre, Storylines, and Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra worked hard with our team at Vodafone Events Centre and made best use of the resources and the situation. The Ministry of Education opened the opportunity for us to work in the digital arts and offer online content.

We worked with long time collaborator, Māori sand artist Marcus Winter and we were able to produce “Māori Myths with the Sandman,” a sand art video series. Since schools were also looking for digital content and material during the lockdowns, it resulted in a massive response with the registration of more than 8,600 students. We also worked with two children’s theatre companies, Tim Bray Productions and The Glow Show Company, to present two highly innovative educational shows to cater to the growing needs of our community’s tamariki.

Vector Wero Whitewater Park’s team worked closely with entities like Water Safety NZ, Aktive Auckland Sport & Recreation, CLM Community Sport and John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams to ensure that water safety sessions were successfully delivered and still met the highest health and safety standards during the pandemic. We ran the expanded “South Auckland Adventure Programme,” a Trillian Trust sponsored activity for 2,500 people who are 13 yrs old and above, and who live or work in South Auckland to learn how to be safe around moving water.

Despite the pandemic, we served more than 44,700 children and young people through arts, culture, dance, and music programmes at the Vodafone Events Centre, and water safety and water-based challenges at Vector Wero. Schools and students accessed these either free of charge or with heavily subsidised rates.

These very encouraging results have been achieved due to the continued support of our sponsors, partners and the wider community during the challenging past year and, as always, we are very grateful.

Please take time to read our annual Community Good Report 2021. You may download the copy by clicking here.

David Comery, CEO