Growing Minds: giving the greatest gift - education through inspiration

Every child in New Zealand deserves the opportunity to experience the difference communities can make to their environment. Growing Minds, established by the Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi, is promoting this vision in the Auckland area and invites you to join with us.

Tiritiri Matangi is a wonderful example of what ordinary people can achieve with inspiration, hard work and support from the Department of Conservation. Since the 1980s a barren island has been transformed into a world-renowned wildlife sanctuary. Thousands of volunteers have given their time to grow and plant 283,000 native trees. Many of our endangered native birds and reptiles have since been released into the habitat created. Our visitors now have an opportunity to experience what native New Zealand bush must have been like before the arrival of pests, alive with the song of native birds living among lush forest.

We would like to see every school in the Auckland area have the opportunity to visit the Island where our inspiring volunteer guides will help the children to engage with their surroundings. However, as many of our lower decile schools struggle to fund the costs of transport to the Island, we have established our Growing Minds programme which provides grants to cover these costs.

Growing Minds is funded by sponsorship and donations. Every contribution from $20 for a single visit to our annual budget of $30,000 will be used to bring children to the Island.

Please help us bring more kids to Tiritiri by donating to Growing Minds.

Contact details

For further information or to make a donation please contact Mary-Ann Rowland  by email (guiding@tiritirimatangi.org.nz) or phone (09 476 0010, Wednesdays to Sundays).