Donations to charities are being hit by the rising cost of living, KidsCan says, and it is worried its ability to help children will be affected.
In 2022 the Aotearoa charity fed 49,000 children a day and had an increase of 10,000 more tamariki that received assistance, as well as recording its biggest drop in donors in the past 17 years.
KidsCan founder Julie Chapman said the charity was struggling to fill the gap and there had been fewer new donors signing up.
Inflation was also affecting the organisation’s ability to provide help.
“It was harder to get more people to sign up because the cost of living and all of those things is really affecting people, including those that would normally be willing and able to sign up to support children,” Chapman said.
There were almost 900 schools to support nationwide, and another 60 centres on a waiting list.
The wider economic situation was also driving demand from young people seeking help with a crisis helpline.
Photo / RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
Wellington Samaritan’s chairman Tony Robinson said previously older people made up a large proportion of those contacting the charity, but there had been an increase in calls from younger people who faced financial difficulties.
And with a recession predicted, he expected even more calls from younger people this year.
Some were leaving school earlier because of the pandemic, while some tertiary students were working through the day and then studying alone at home at night.
Robinson said young people also faced more social isolation as university lectures had moved online.
Students were working through the day and studying at home alone in the evenings, meaning they struggled to make time to meet friends.
“You know, doing three or four hours getting their information through these online lectures.
“And then of course they’ve got their own social groups where they’re frenetically trying to keep in touch and whatever, without seeing their friends personally as much as they should or would like,” Robinson said.
The pandemic had changed societal systems and structures hugely over the last few years, Robinson said, and this had been particularly disruptive for young people.
“(Changes) that take people - children, schoolchildren, secondary school, university students - out of their routines, things that they’ve been most used to and confident in their life, it’s all been turned on its head. That has affected young people more than we would know.”
Nationwide, the charity has more than 200 volunteers answering the phones 24/7.
“Some of those, we’d like more, are young counsellors or volunteer listeners. They are, for example, studying psychiatry at university,” Robinson said.
“We will be aiming as a goal to get more younger phone-line volunteers, at the same time stressing that it is the older volunteers that have a wealth of experience that are hugely important as well.”
With the predicted recession and further Covid waves looming, the charity expects even more callers, particularly young people, over the next year.
