Our Owners

Our education funding programme has traditionally had a focus on providing support to our whānau in their education journey through scholarships to university or polytechnic. However, as well as academic education, we think it is equally important to continue cultural and sport education. So, we also provide sports and cultural grants for owners who want some support to reach their goals.

The individual sports and cultural grants are awarded up to $500, usually to assist registered owners with travel to events where they are representing their sport or cultural group at a national or international event.
Individual sports and cultural grants are only available for registered NRAIT owners to apply between 1 June and 31 August, however, Tautoko Putea grants are available outside of these dates.

Individual grants
We see a range of cultural and sporting activities throughout the grant applications, and it’s great to see our owners engaging in so many different activities. For example, recent grant recipients include Kirsty Willison, who travelled to Europe with her kapa haka group, and Haelyn Ngaia, who recently travelled to Las Vegas to compete at the Kenpo World Championships.

Kirsty Willison, one of our sports & cultural grant recipients for 2017, helped organise a trip to the International Folklore Festival in Southern Italy for her kapa haka group last year.
As well as assisting with the organisation of the trip, she also performed with the group. The grant helped Kirsty travel and perform in Italy. You can take a look at the video of her trip here.

We were also proud to award Haelyn Ngaia a Tautoko Putea grant to travel and compete at the Jeff Speakman Kenpo 5.0 World Championships in Las Vegas, USA last month. Haelyn achieved great results, with a 3rd Place in Forms/Sets in ages 9 and under Brown - Black Belt category, 4th in Self Defence and Sparring. Her whānau say we are “extremely proud of Haelyn and her achievements thus far in her martial art journey and thank you for helping Haelyn to achieve her dream of competing on the world stage”.

Opportunities for the community
Our grants and funding opportunities for sports or cultural groups are not limited to the education funding programme. The Trust is often approached by groups who require financial assistance for upcoming events or competitions.

For example, we recently provided Te Kapa Haka o Te Āwhina Marae with a grant so they could purchase their uniforms for the recent regional Kapa Haka competition.

As a Trust, we believe it is important for our owners and wider community to get involved in a range of activities to learn more about their culture and retain, and further their education. We’re looking forward to seeing more owners achieve their goals and represent their community. You can keep up to date with all of our scholarship and grant recipients on the Our Stories page on our website.