Local charity Skylight Trust is the latest organisation to receive a $10,000 funding donation from the Bupa Foundation Community Grant Program.
Skylight’s services and programmes – built on trauma-informed practice – focus on building resilience with children, young people, and whānau experiencing challenging situations.
With funding from the Bupa Foundation, Skylight’s team piloted their Tai-oranga mental agility and resilience workshops to students in Miramar, Berhampore, Plimmerton and Porirua.
The workshops focus on increasing resilience and supporting children’s wellbeing by using positive psychology and movement-based practices including mindfulness, nutrition, and artwork creation.
“Life can be challenging and complicated for young people. Our programme gives them the tools to understand what they’re experiencing and how to deal with it, and the language to explain it.
Anthony de Rose, CEO at Skylight Trust
“At its crux, Skylight’s programme is about making conversation easier and involving families and whānau in the lives of their young people,” he says.
Following the success of the pilot, Skylight will expand its reach to support more schools.
De Rose continues, “Funding from Bupa will support our expansion into more schools across the Wellington region. We hope to reach at least 150 school aged children in 2023 and equip more schools with access to resilience tools and counsellors.
“Skylight’s optimal goal is to support schools to run the programmes themselves through virtual guidance from our Skylight facilitators,” added de Rose.
Julie Sellar, Interim Managing Director at Bupa, nominated the Trust because of their focus on improving mental wellbeing. “I was impressed with the Trust’s purpose of supporting children and their whānau to navigate through difficult situations.
“Skylight operates in a number of communities in which Bupa has a presence in New Zealand. Both Bupa and Skylight want to support people to have happier, healthier lives, and resilience and wellbeing play a vital role in doing so,” she says.
The Bupa Foundation provides funding each year to grass-roots initiatives that help improve mental health, wellbeing or supports environmental sustainability in communities throughout New Zealand. In 2022, eight local organisations throughout New Zealand were selected to receive $10,000 grants.
