Atawhai Playcentre

Atawhai Playcentre is home to over 40 families from the local community. Not only are we a qualified ECE service for over 60 children, we also provide training and support for free to their extended whanau. Both children and parents can feel supported and cared for when they attend Atawhai Playcentre whether that is a cuppa while the children play on the slide or parenting and child development courses to support the learning of their child.

We currently offer a WINZ subsidy to any family that qualifies. Which allows any low income families to attend Atawhai Playcentre for free and also access our training and support for free. Ultimately the children can only benefit from being in an environment where the adults know them, love them and are learning alongside them.

Not only do children attend Atawhai Playcentre with a parent, but many grandparents attend as well. What a wonderful opportunity for APC to provide a safe and welcoming place for grandparents to spend quality time with their grandchildren.

Also some families choose playcentre who have recently immigrated into NZ, looking for support and an extended village to care for their children. Atawhai Playcentre is comprised of many families with no local support. It has been the place for them to find their village and feel connected in their communities. Many of the current children have attended Atawhai Playcentre from birth and have a deep sense of belonging and connection to the centre and to the other families who attend the centre.

Families choose Atawhai Playcentre for a number of reasons, one of them being the outdoor space that we can provide children. Our Tamariki love being outdoors from playing in the sandpit, swinging on the swings, climbing on our frame, going down our slides, running through the grass or climbing on our beloved fort. We have done careful maintenance of the property and playground over the years - working bees, weekly gardening rosters and parent volunteer maintenance managers. Our fort has been played on by hundreds of community children and has been at Atawhai Playcentre for over 30 years. We have repaired any natural wear and tear over the years to ensure that it is a safe place for our children to explore. Unfortunately it has reached its natural expiration date and our climbing frame no longer meets ECE regulations. We have been aware of this for the last 3 years and have been actively fundraising to replace it. We are also aware that the current space could use a few alterations and a bit more development to support the learning of current and future tamariki. These changes would better utilise the large outdoor space we have including repositioning our playhouse for better access for all children, building a flat deck in front of the playhouse to provide more space for creative play outdoors, building a path to contain our bark chips, adding a variety of native plants and replacing our current aging fort and outdated climbing frame. We have spent the last 3 years consulting with landscapers and playground designers to design a space that will provide a quality outdoor learning environment for our current and future tamariki. We are a community service and a registered charity, not a business. After a lot of consultation within our community and a large effort from the families at APC and generous donations of local businesses, we have decided that in order to achieve this redevelopment we will need to apply for grants. Our goal is to complete this project in 2021 and in order to do that we have been saving, fundraising including galas, a quiz night, selling a children’s book from a local author, selling sustainable eco friendly items, selling sunhats, running social events for the community like an improv night out, and many financial donations over the years from families within our APC community. Please help us update our playground so that we can ensure many more years of outdoor learning for the tamariki that call Atawhai Playcentre their ECE service and their home.