Media Statement
Wednesday, 18 March 2009

Hon Peter Dunne
MP for Ohariu
Leader of UnitedFuture

Dunne opens new Children’s Village

UnitedFuture leader Peter Dunne today continued the party’s long links with the Children’s Health Camps movement by opening a new concept Children’s Village in Gisborne.

Mr Dunne said Te Kainga Whaiora Children’s Village was a tremendous step forward and a new, much more holistic way of meeting the needs of children and families.

“I think the move to a more home-like environment for children and their families is a very important, but it also demonstrates something very important about the Children’s Health Camp movement, and that is its flexibility and adaptability,” he said, in jointly opening the village with Chief Families Commissioner, Dr Jan Pryor.

“The needs of society, and our children and families. are changing. We live in an age where families come under huge pressures, and types of pressures that are different from those experienced in the past,” Mr Dunne said.

“For this reason, we need to look at our responses to children and families, and this new village and the concept behind it, does just that.”

Mr Dunne told the gathering that the occasion also had a family significance for him, with his grandfather being strongly involved with the Glenelg “Sunshine Camp”, fighting tuberculosis and malnutrition in children. The Children’s Health Camps evolved from the Sunshine Camps.

Ends

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