Ko Wai Au Trust was established by my Husband and I, March 2023 we went live with our first service Ko Wai Au. People often ask why? and how? We both have lengthy experience working within the Social Services Arena and have three beautiful Tamariki, this is our WHY.

We first moved to Te Awamutu in 2015 with our two boys at the time. We identified a need of supports for rangatahi within Waipa, as we were at the time respite carers for Oranga Tamariki. We started dreaming of how one day when our own Tamariki were older, we would have hostels and land to provide transitional accommodation for rangatahi. We soon realised that we couldn’t wait any longer and having land and hostels were a bit far reached, we began putting pen to paper and 5 years later, we had a registered charity and secured our first contract.

Something we can’t emphasize enough is that “dreams do come true”!