Valuable insights from Oranga holiday programme

Understanding more about what children and young people feel about their local community is important.

This is because our large scale Kāinga Ora urban development project will replace 400 old state houses with 500 new state homes. Around 600 affordable and market homes will also be built over the next eight years. Come completion approximately 1,100 new homes would have been built in Oranga.

The Oranga holiday programme was a mahi tahi partnership between Auckland Council and Kāinga Ora for young people aged 5 to 13 years.

Children enjoying the recent Oranga holiday programme

“More than half the attendees were from our Kāinga Ora homes and hearing in their own words what they see as important in their community provided valuable Insights for us.” says Tess Liew, Kāinga Ora Community Development Manager.

“Some common themes came through. The children told us what they loved most was all the local facilities and open spaces - going to the pools, playgrounds, mountain, taking their dogs for walks and, of course, the people”, Tess says.

Crystal Mesui, community development and engagement coordinator for Oranga says a strong focus on the local environment came up.

“We also asked what could be better and this included more rubbish bins and less littering in the community. The children also said they wanted to include family / whānau in organised clean ups. Unsurprisingly, they would also love to have more activities and holiday programmes in future which we will factor into our work programme here.”

“Hearing from the children themselves provided really useful insights through a completely different lens and we’re committed to doing this again. It all helps support our customers to live well in their homes and build a thriving community, especially for the children and young people living in this community.”

Find out more about the Oranga Development(external link)