A small firm helping make a big difference for at-risk youth
By Craig Sisterson

AUCKLAND LAW firm Carter & Partners recently held its annual Golf Day, raising more than $25,000 for the Great Potentials MATES programme (Mentoring and Tutoring Education Scheme), an educational charity founded by Dame Lesley Max. The money raised will help more young people have a chance at university, said John Carter, whose firm has been running the charitable golf tournament for about 10 years. Initially, funds were raised for the Auckland Kindergarten Association, and for the past five years, the MATES programme has received the benefits. “I guess I’m a big believer in early childhood education, and opportunities later on for disadvantaged people,” said Carter.

MATES is one of two educational support programmes run by Great Potentials. It provides selected school students who have the potential to achieve, but are at risk of underachievement, with a friendly university mentor/tutor, to raise levels of aspiration and achievement, and to provide “the listening ear young people need”. Piloted in 2002, run in partnership with the University of Auckland, and now active in 12 Auckland high schools and one intermediate, MATES has achieved some extraordinary results. “There are many mentoring programmes that provide support to young people, but what differentiates MATES is the tutoring,” said Carter.

“For at-risk students, the need goes beyond the modelling, encouragement, and personal involvement mentors can offer – they actually need tuition in the skill areas where deficits can bar their progress to higher achievement,” said Max. “The results speak for themselves with the majority of mentees getting University Entrance and 97 per cent of mentees finding MATES helped their academic achievement.”

Other than getting disadvantaged kids into a position to go to University, Carter said the best thing about MATES is that several of the mentees that went to University and got qualified are now coming back and becoming mentors, supporting the next generation. “Hopefully, it’s going to have a snowball effect, and get bigger and bigger.” However, despite the success of both MATES and its programme for parents with pre-schoolers (HIPPY), Great Potentials has thusfar received little in the way of Government support, which makes the efforts of backers like Carter & Partners so very important.

Money raised from the past two Carter & Partners’ golf tournaments has been used to trial MATES junior, a programme for students making the transition from intermediate to secondary school (a time when many children begin to ‘drop out’). Carter is grateful for the “amazing” support their golf tournament receives, enabling the firm to make such a large donation to MATES. “We have a hard core of clients that provide significant sponsorship, by way of donating prizes, or sponsoring teams to play holes, and that happens year after year. And we have a couple of other legal firms that come and are involved, year after year.” In fact, the most recent tournament ended with a team from fellow Auckland firm McVeagh Fleming raising the Carter’s Cup.

You can read more about Great Potentials, and its educational support programmes HIPPY and MATES, at www.greatpotentials.org.nz.