South Auckland is the epicenter of family and sexual violence in New Zealand with police attending to a family and sexual violence incidence every 4 minutes.

The Ted Manson Foundation has been funding a successful family violence prevention program in South Auckland in partnership with the Papakura Marea and Sir Ray Avery’s HelpatHand trust and is now extending this program in partnership with other family violence prevention agencies in South Auckland.

Thanks to funding from the Ted Manson Foundation local family support agency Family Success Matters will together with other South Auckland forward facing family support agencies expand this program across South Auckland in collaboration with the Papakura marae.

HelpatHand founder Sir Ray Avery said," This program shows how successful bottom-up community-based initiatives can be in protecting families subject to family and sexual violence and the Ted Manson funding could not have been timelier because we see a large increase in family violence incidences in South Auckland over the Christmas holidays."

"None of these programs would have got off the ground without the generous donations from the Ted Manson Foundation and now we have a proven model to protect and support families suffering family and sexual violence we want to secure Government funding to roll out this program Nationally. Currently the cost of family and sexual violence in NZ costs the Government more than seven billion dollars so it makes good sense for the Government to invest in our family violence prevention program both from a financial and societal wellbeing perspective. "Said Sir Ray.

Ted Manson said "I am more than proud to support the roll out of this initiative to support and protect these vulnerable woman-families before the worst happens. I know this is one of the most important issues facing NZ and it’s imperative the Government come on board to roll out this successful program Nationally to protect and support the hundreds of woman-families across New Zealand who need help right now.

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